Kung Fu remastered
by The Threat
Summary: Since the whole system is saved from the Reavers, and everyone become aware of their origin, you'd expect things to have quieted down... right?  This is a different, and hopefully better version of my earlier 'Serenity' story.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: "Firefly/Serenity" and related characters are created by Joss Whedon. Characters used in this chapter (who will appear in later chapters also) are mine.

Note: "Kung fu" in the title does not refer to the martial art, but to the original meaning of the word: "achievement through great effort".

* * *

Blue Sun HQ, planet designation: Cronus

Everything was going about it's usual business in the building. There was nothing, except for the low paychecks, about which anyone inside the building could possibly complain. That was, until everyone's computers started to go haywire. Everyone did what they could to help the problem, but nothing worked. Suddenly, a gas got vented into the entire building. The gas was suffocating, but that wasn't what got them down. It appeared as though the gas merely had people relax, rather than be agitated about what's happening. One moment they thought they must do something, the next, they rather wanted to lie down and sleep.

Somewhere else in the building, a small group of four people, each wearing masks, marched their way through the building. What they did was upload a virus into the building's main-frame, so all it's technologies, including building's securities, would become useless to anyone working inside. To be sure there'd be no resistance either, they vented gas into their air-shafts.

"Everyone's down." a female in the group whispered.

"We're going in." the leader said.

With the failed securities, there was hardly any trouble for them to open secured doors. They went deeper into the building, until they reached what appeared to be the central core.

"Funny. I thought they'd put this kinda thing in a ship." one other member remarked.

"Perhaps this even is a ship." another one remarked.

When everyone looked at him, he explained: "Makes sense. In case people would try to invade this place, so they can fly away."

"Not much good this did to them." the girl in the group laughed, as she took out a pack of plastic explosives.

Everyone grabbed a few pieces of their own, which they placed everywhere in the room, hiding out of plain sight, just in case.

Once that was done, the group retreated themselves, through the same corridors they had entered in the first place. On their way, one of the guys was hit by something. Nobody could be certain as to what it was, but based on what they saw, it looked like a more dangerous version of their usual sound-guns, as the vibration it normally creates, causes the body to vibrate so heavily, and fast, that part that is hit would instantly implode. In the first room the other three could find, they hid themselves, while trying to fend off the guards, who too had started to wear masks, with their own old-fashioned projectile guns. As soon as they started to come from both, they realized they were cornered.

"Now we're humped!" the leader exclaimed.

"What do we do?" the girl wondered.

The other guy stopped shooting to look around in the room. The core was somewhere underground. As they weren't too far away from there, so they were still underground, therefor there was no room to escape to. That's when he noticed something else. There was a hole in the wall, big enough to fit a human.

"The garbage-disposals." he suggested, "It's our only chance.

The leader cursed something in Chinese, before stating: "That's the most ruttin' act of desperation I..."

He couldn't finish his sentence, as he suddenly got hit in his shoulder. His arm couldn't remain attached, but the shooting had stopped.

"Murphy!" the girl shouted at him.

While the guards were closing in slowly, the leader took something out of his pocket: "Here's the detonator. You guys finish the job."

Before either the girl or the other guy could say anything, the leader passed out and died.

"Get outta there, or we'll bust your gorram heads off!" one of the guards shouted.

The girl suddenly threw the detonator to the other guy, saying: "You go ahead, I'll distract them."

"Lewis, what are you..." the other guy tried to ask.

The girl, while readying her guns, interrupted him: "You're too important for this. You must survive no matter what!"

"I'm not more than you or..." the guy tried to say, but he was too late.

The girl got out of the room, shot whoever she could, while the guards tried to stop her as much as they could. The girl didn't appear to care if their weapons had destroyed bits of her arms and legs, while the other guy still hesitated to do anything. But with every bit of his friend that he saw being ripped off, he decided he must do this. He quickly returned to his dead leader, picked up some of his explosives, as well as his guns. Two of them were regular handguns, the others were larger machine-guns. These kind of weapons were little old-fashioned in this age, some would even say obsolete, but have been proven most effective against their high-tech enemies. With these weapons at hand, he turned to the garbage-disposal unit, jumped through and disappeared.

One way or another, the unit lead him outside the building, where the guy pressed the button on the detonator, causing the building to explode. Given that the guy was inside a container, he couldn't actually see the explosion, but he heard it. It was enough for him to know that the mission was accomplished. Unfortunately, that meant the deaths of his three friends as well.


	2. Chapter 2

Persephone, a few months later:

In a dark alley, a man was awaiting someone. He looked at his watch, indicating that his appointee is more than a little late. Until he suddenly appeared right behind him.

"Mal!" the man yelled, with his cockney accent, "We should not be seen together."

"That's why I'm late." the one called Mal, replied, "I had to be sure that Zoe could be here without seeing us together."

He pointed to the woman accompanying him, who had her back turned to them, so that she would indeed never have seen these two together.

"You an idiot or something?" the man said.

"They say I have a knack for that." Mal said flatly, "Especially when doing business with you, Badger."

"Look, I don't know how you got her." the man, Badger started, "But I'm supposed to be meeting with someone else right now."

"That wouldn't be some girl who can do your English?" Mal questioned, while using Chinese to describe how he feels about Badger's English.

"Hey!" Badger replied, "I'm serious here. You can't just show up to me like you once could."

"Actually, I can." Mal replied, "Before, I had to go to you for a job, but now you're just desperate to get any yourself."

"Clever." Badger said, when the tone in his voice started to change, "But not enough."

He clipped his fingers, when suddenly a few more men appeared from out of the shadows.

"Woh!" Mal sounded surprised, as he held his hands up in the air, "This wasn't supposed to happen."

"Things never go as they should, cap'n." the woman, Zoe, remarked.

"I'm sorry Mal." Badger said, although he didn't sound sorry, "But with the Core gone, I can't take any more chances."

"So what?" Mal wondered, "You're gonna steal from us now? Didn't think you're that..."

Badger interrupted Mal, the second he used a Chinese insult: "I'm not interested in you, but your ship."

Mal chuckled: "My ship? You've been breathing in too much atmo?"

"I might." Badger said, "Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it you who got to broadcast that message all through the Cortex? And wasn't your ship somehow involved with this?"

Mal was speechless for a moment, but then said: "Your point being?"

Badger chuckled: "An old piece of junk, and it somehow overthrew the system's leaders. I must know your secret."

Just when Mal was about to say something, Badger interrupted: "And don't say it's love!"

Mal cursed something in Chinese, before Zoe said: "It was worth the shot, sir."

Badger was about to search Mal's pockets, but that's when Mal decided to try and fight back. He grabbed Badger's wrist, then pushed Zoe to duck down with him, as the other guys started to fire their guns. Those who shot, had really shot each other, however it wasn't enough, as five of them were still strong enough to stand up. Mal punched Badger out cold, so he could run to hide behind a wall, take his own gun and start firing it to the others. Zoe, meanwhile, when she hit the ground, she rolled herself towards the fallen men, to pick up one of their guns and shoot everyone else.

Once the shooting was over, Mal turned back to Badger. He picked him up, smacked his face until he awakened, then asked: "I'm just guessing, but you had no job ready for me, did you?"

Badger smiled: "I was just hoping for a quick hump with that girl, but instead the next best thing..."

That's when Mal punched Badger's face, knocking him out cold again. Then he ordered Zoe: "Check them."

She did, but after mere seconds, she was already done: "They were desperate, alright. They ain't got anything on them."

Mal looked at Badger again, was about to punch him once more, but changed his mind at the last second.

"Come on, Zoe. Let's get back." he told her.


	3. Chapter 3

Once Mal and Zoe had returned to the Firefly "Serenity", Mal gave the order: "Close it up, we're moving out."

"Got us a new job, cap'n?" a young girl, covered with enough oil grease to suggest she's the ship's mechanic, and who was all pumped up about this, asked this.

"No, just Badger who wouldn't keep his fly or his mouth shut." Mal replied.

While the mechanic looked somewhat disturbed by this, a young man, about her age, dressed up in a more casual way, which contradicts the rest of the ship's crew's more wild western outfit, had to know more details: "His fly?"

"Let's just say, he only wanted to meet your accent-posing sister." Mal replied, without even looking at him and going straight up to the ship's cockpit.

"He what?" the young man shouted back at him.

"Calm down, Simon." the young girl tried to soften him.

"How can I calm down, Kaylee?" the young man, Simon, asked of her, "Someone wants to rape my sister, how can I be calm about that?"

"It's too bad." someone whispered. When Simon and the other girl, Kaylee, turned to look, they saw the aformentioned sister, River, who sat down at the bottom of the stairs.

"What?" Simon couldn't believe he heard this.

"I wish I knew what it's like to be with a guy." River whined.

"How can you think of that?" Simon started to rage.

"Come on now!" Kaylee still tried to calm him down, still with the smile on her face, "It's not unusual at her age she would feel that way."

"She's right." Zoe agreed, "She's not a child anymore that needs her brother's protection. Or even needs anyone's protection."

"Zoe, you got everything closed up?" Mal called through the intercom.

Zoe replied: "Yes, sir."

Shortly after that, the Firefly had let loose of its docks and set off into the black, where every next sound it makes would never be heard.

Shortly after their departure, Zoe went to talk to Mal: "So what do we do now? Now that Badger won't provide us any more jobs."

"I'm sure that we'll find a more suitable one on our next planet." Mal said, sounding confident, but as usual for no good reason, "But I think we've got a much bigger problem."

"Which is, sir?" Zoe asked.

"Badger was one son of a bitch, but he has more advantages if we kept our ship." Mal explained, "So why did he want to set a trap for us?"

Meanwhile, Badger had been dragged into another ship, which stopped at a space-station, where he was immediately brought to see it's main leader. Once he arrived, his face still battered and bruised with his earlier fight, he started to talk to the leader: "I'm sorry sir, I couldn't..."

The leader raised his hand, so to say that Badger didn't need to say more. Upon seeing that hand, he silenced himself, but the man started talking: "I thought you were in need for money, and you could not do something easy."

The leader's accent was something that kept surprising Badger to hear, but not under circumstances which were this serious.

"I don't know why I keep underestimating..." he started, but got interrupted again.

"You talk so big, everyone talks big of you, but you don't stay true to the talks." the leader said.

That's when he turned around to face Badger, while holding something that looked like a taser-gun.

Badger looked frightened at the sight of this: "Oh no, please! Mr. Nishka, you really don't need to do this!"

The leader, Nishka, merely smiled: "You're telling me what I do not need to do?"

Badger muttered some incoherent words, after which Nishka decided: "Maybe, I can use you for something else."

After hearing this, Badger sighed of relieve. But then Nishka: "But you need to look more convincing."

That's when his henchmen took knives out of their pockets, at which Badger looked frightened. He hoped that Nishka was joking, but the henchmen tightened their grip on him, so he couldn't run away. No matter how much he begged, the henchmen's knives got closer to him, when they decided to have some fun with him.


	4. Chapter 4

Back at "Serenity", the ship had set it's course to another celestial body, though Mal had not told anyone where they were going yet. It didn't take long before someone asked him.

"So what's our next move, sir?" Zoe asked him, when they were still on the bridge.

"I thought of going to see Elder Gommen." Mal replied.

Zoe chuckled: "Isn't that where we met..."

"Per-maybe-haps." Mal interrupted her, "But I don't think we'd meet her there."

"And what about Inara?" Zoe reasoned, "She hasn't been having much clients lately and she can't keep paying us what little money she still has."

"I know." Mal snarled, as he let the auto-pilot do the rest of the trip, "She keeps reminding me."

"So you do sometimes listen to me." another woman said, who not only just entered the bridge, she was also the one they only just mentioned, Inara.

"Only because you're talking." Mal said.

"Sure." Inara sighed, "I'm sure you also didn't mind me eavesdropping on your idea to see Gommen."

"I know they don't have your proper clientelle, but it's hard to get a job since we ain't got no government anymore." Mal whined, "But I'm sure these people can use some of our help. Like they did last time."

"Yes. And last time you ended up killing a high ranking man's son." Inara reminded him.

"Yep. Feels just like the last one." Mal sighed, as he turned on the screen next to him, which showed a video recording of a message that was broadcast over the cortex.

The message was brought by a young man, who spoke: "With the Blue Sun Corp building destroyed, and the Alliance gone, it leaves the whole system open for anyone who wants to take over..."

Mal stopped the recording there: "Anyone who hates us independants."

"Only the Core people will take advantage of this." Zoe moaned, "I wonder who will come out of this power vaccuum."

"Look at it from the bright side." Inara reminded them, "With a new guy, Simon and River will no longer be wanted fugitives."

"You haven't heard the best part of that message." Mal reminded her, after which he fast-forwarded the message, then let it continue.

"There are still independents out there, who wouldn't hesitate to take advantage of our good nature, to rob us all, or even kill us. These savages will be found and tought an example."

The message was followed by a loud cheering from the crowd, after which Mal stopped the recording, to say: "Wish I'd meet with that bastard who caused all this."

"Now, it's not enough for us to stay under the radar." Zoe added, "Coz that's where they look for us first."

"Then how do you explain seeing that Badger fellow?" Inara asked, sarcasticly.

"We asked him, he invited us, nothing illegal about it." Mal replied, "As simple as that."

"Not to mention you had River beat some soldiers down so they would let us land." Zoe remarked.

"Ok, so she's a wanted fugitive again." Mal started to get annoyed, "That ain't any new to her."

"Well then..." Inara started, as she was about to leave, "I hope you know what your doing. For all of our (speaks Chinese) sakes."

Once she was gone, Zoe had her own things to say: "You know, you could just..."

"If I needed your advice, I'd give you the order." Mal interrupted, "Did I give you the order?"

Zoe tried to reason with him, but Mal interrupted her again to repeat his question, to which Zoe answered: "No sir."

"Good!" Mal said, as he continued his course to the other planet.

Once they had arrived, Mal landed the ship some distance away from the nearest village, just in case. It was night on that planet, so there was very little light that allowed them to see much. Once they were on the ground, Mal rounded up the usual gang, Zoe and a man called Jayne.

"River, you'd better come too." Mal ordered.

Simon had cut in: "What? What do you need her for?"

"Because last time we were here, we met with someone dangerous." Mal replied, "Wouldn't want that to happen again now, do we?"

"But what if...?" Simon kept asking.

"Simon, please." River begged, "You've already tried too hard to protect me."

"Right, so now I'm relieving you of duty." Mal sniggered, "Come along now."

Although River followed without hesitation, Simon still tried to stop him. That's when Kaylee decided to stop Simon.

Under his breath, as he left, Mal mumbled: "Finally, their relationship is useful for somethin'."

"Come on now." Kaylee said, "She will never be independent if you don't let her go."

"But what if she's not yet ready for..."

"She never will be if you don't let her." Kaylee reasoned.

"I... I suppose you're right, Kaylee."

"Well, now..." Kaylee whispered, as she let her fingers walk on his chest, "With everyone else gone, we can do things I'm sure Inara wouldn't mind."

Simon appeared to be interested, but something held him back: "But... River..."

That's when Kaylee pressed her lips against his, causing them to slowly walk away, back to their personal quarters.

While they were having their fun, somebody else was outside. Whoever it was, he was tired from walking, if not running long-time. He had a heavy load to carry, which only felt heavier with every next step he took. He knew he was getting closer to the nearest town, but he didn't feel like he'd make it that far. Suddenly, the answer stared in front of his eyes. He saw a Firefly-class ship. He got closer to it, opened it's door and entered. Immediately, he searched for the best place where he could crash down. In doing so, he went up the stairs, where he found one of the ship's shuttles. He went in, closed the door behind him, and allowed himself to crash down.


	5. Chapter 5

"You know, I can understand how you can still be a virgin, with your brother watching you." Jayne brought up.

"Jayne, that ain't nothin' to talk about right now." Zoe stated.

"He is right, though." River whined.

"You know, if you're just looking for a hum..." Jayne started, but that's when River had rose up her leg to kick him in his face.

Once Jayne was down, River stated: "It's bad enough for me to hear you think it, so I don't want to hear you say it."

Another thought went through Jayne's mind, which got River to kick him in his stomach.

"Okay now, that's enough." Mal had to come in between them.

River calmed down, then went on to the village. Mal helped Jayne up, but not without a gun pointed at his face: "Don't ever talk like that again."

"Sir." Zoe almost sounded like she was begging him, as she put her hand on Mal's gun, "I think he got it."

That's when River stopped walking, as she sensed something.

"What's wrong?" Mal asked her.

"I..." River hesitated, "I keep hearing people shout."

"What are they shouting?" Mal asked, concerned.

"Some sound like 'help', others 'leave us alone', the rest sounds like 'don't resist'." River replied.

That's when a worried expression appeared on Mal's face: "It couldn't be..."

He started to run towards the village, the others following him.

Once they had arrived, they noticed what had happened. The entire village has been torched down, and the people have been slaughtered. Judging from the already extinguished fires and the state of the dead bodies, this had happened a long time ago.

"What monster would have done this...?" Zoe wondered.

"Would that operative a'done this?" Jayne wondered, "Ya know, that one who killed Book too?"

"If it is..." Mal cursed, unable to finish his sentence.

"So what do we do now, sir?" Zoe asked.

"For the moment, we head back to the black." Mal said, "Hopefully we get lucky and find that son of a bitch and a new job."

With nothing else that they could do here, they returned to their ship, with which they took off almost immediately after.


	6. Chapter 6

At dinner, Mal had told everyone what they had seen in the village, which shocked everyone else. Kaylee was the first to speak: "Why would anyone destroy an entire village of innocents?"

"Looks to me like someone just likes to hurt people, don't matter what." Jayne remarked.

"Hey! Don't be so frigid!" Kaylee exclaimed.

"But he's right." Mal said, while Simon tried to calm Kaylee down, "Unless there's something we've missed, there's no reason why they'd have attacked them. It's almost like..."

Mal stopped mid-sentence, to which Zoe asked: "Like what, sir?"

"Nothing!" Mal shook it off.

River was the one who was setting the table at the time, at which point Mal had found a way to change the subject: "River, why are you setting one plate too many?"

River looked around at everybody, who had noticed this only then. There are only seven people aboard Serenity, yet River had set eight.

"It's for our guest." River replied, "He's sleeping in the other shuttle."

"You're finally renting that shuttle too?" Inara was surprised to hear this.

"Yes, I did that days ago behind my own back." Mal replied, "When did he come in?"

"He was already there when we arrived." River answered.

"And you didn't tell us?" Mal was upset.

"He's asleep, I didn't think he'd do anything." River explained.

"Then I think we should wake him up." Mal looked at Jayne when he said that, who then smiled as he got up.

The man who had sneaked into the Firefly, was sleeping quietly, without so much as causing any trouble of any kind. Suddenly, he felt something freezingly cold make contact with his entire body. It shook him awake, causing him to curse some things in Chinese. It didn't take him long to realize somebody had thrown water on him, but he didn't know who did this or why. That's when Jayne moved himself to this man, who appeared quite young, likely older than River but certainly not older than anyone else aboard. Jayne grabbed this young man by his throat, held him up against the wall and pointed his gun to his face.

The young man tried to say something, but Jayne had already started talking: "Give me one good reason why I shouldn't shoot this into that skull o' yours..."

"That's quite enough, Jayne." Mal had to be sure Jayne wouldn't go too far, but didn't order him to let go of the young man.

That's when Zoe raised a gun of her own, which was much bigger than Jayne's, with the excuse: "Just in case."

"River." Mal turned to her, who was somewhere in the door, more out of the shuttle than in, "What do you see?"

River looked at the young man, who looked back at her. She noticed this vague look on his face, but it was only through reading his mind that she knew what went through his mind.

"Er..." the young man wanted to say something.

Mal pointed his own gun to him: "You're not gonna say anything unless I say so. And I say you tell us who you are!"

A little frightened, the young man replied: "Reese."

Mal looked at River for confirmation, so she told him: "He's telling the truth." River said.

Mal was surprised to hear it: "That's it? Just Reese?"

"Mal, my finger's itching." Jayne complained.

"Can't say I disagree, sir." Zoe added.

"That's our guest?" Kaylee had just arrived there too, "He looks pretty harmless."

"Guest?" the young man, Reese, could not understand.

"You're in our ship." Mal replied, "To these ladies you're our guest, but as far as I'm..."

"Your ship?" Reese sounded surprised, especially when he turned his head to see them flying in outer space,"You call this old piece, that looks like it hasn't been used in years a ship? I'm surprised this thing is even flying."

"This... old... piece?" Kaylee started to get angry.

"Easy, Kaylee." Zoe tried to calm her down.

"Now look, er... Mal, wasn't it?" Reese asked, apparantly forgotten that Jayne has him at gunhold, "Short for Malcolm, by any chance?"

"That's captain Reynolds for you!" Mal insisted.

"Well then, Reynolds..." Reese replied, "I just needed a place to sleep, and when I saw this old thing I thought nobody would notice or care if I stayed here..."

"Ya thought wrong, ya did." Jayne said.

"But since I'm here anyway, you might as well make the best of it." Reese reasoned.

"Oh really?" Mal wasn't convinced yet.

"You can drop me off at the next planet you're headed." Reese suggested, "And as long as I stay here, I won't be much of any trouble to anyone."

Mal appeared to need to think this over, so Reese added: "Come on, Reynolds. What else would you do?"

"Throw you out in the black for one!" Kaylee remarked.

There was something about him calling him Reynolds, without "captain", which ticked Mal off. But he decided to ignore Kaylee's remark: "Fine. I won't have you hopping around here sticking your nose where it don't belong! Are we clear on that?"

"Whatever you say." Reese said.

Zoe had already lowered her gun. When Jayne saw that, he let go of Reese and lowered his own gun. Reese rubbed his throat, trying to ease the pain. Mal, along with Zoe and Jayne, left the room.

"We'd better keep watching him." Mal told the other two.

"Taking this a little personal, capt'n?" Zoe questioned.

"River just read his mind and he didn't twitch." Mal replied.

"You got it, sir." Zoe understood what that meant.

Meanwhil, Kaylee entered the shuttle. She started towards Reese, who didn't do anything to run away from her. She placed herself in front of him, showing anger in her eyes.

"You got away with it that easily." she whispered, slowly speaking louder, "But next time I hear you call Serenity any names, and I swear..."

As she began to use Chinese words, Reese interrupted: "Serenity?"

"Yes, Serenity!" Kaylee exclaimed.

There was that vague look on his face again, to which Kaylee said: "What? You think this 'old piece' doesn't have a name?"

Reese shook his head: "I think you made your point. But..."

"What?" Kaylee sounded uninterested.

"I'm not supposed to run around in this ship, but if you're gonna use that to keep bugging me during my stay here..." Reese sounded like he was warning her.

Kaylee didn't appear to know what to say, just when River stepped into the shuttle: "I think it best for you to leave him alone."

Keeping her angry eyes fixed on him, Kaylee walked towards the shuttle's exit, but turned away once she went through the door. Meanwhile, River had her eyes fixed on Reese too, at which point he looked at her, somewhat worried. Just when Kaylee was out of the shuttle, she noticed the two of them. If she didn't know any better, she thought there was something of a silent conversation going on between the two. Suddenly, River merely gave a head-nod, then left too, smiling.

"What was that?" Kaylee asked.

"He just doesn't know Serenity." River answered, "But if he'll give her a chance, he'll see her as we do."

"That's what that was about?" Kaylee wondered.

"He's not planning on hurting you either." River assured her, "He's a pacifist."

This didn't sound as re-assuring to Kaylee as River wanted it to be, but Kaylee took it in anyway. Together, they walked away from the shuttle.

While that was going on, Mal had ran to Inara's shuttle, to give her the news: "Nothing's wrong. It's just a stowaway."

"Nothing's wrong?" Inara questioned, "You haven't heard the latest."

"The latest?" Mal wondered.

Inara showed him her screen: "This message has been send throughout the cortex."

On the screen there was a face whom Mal recognized only too well. It showed a heavily bruised Badger. Mal couldn't help himself to say: "Did he try to doublecross other men too?"

"I'm here to warn you about these pirates." Badger explained on the screen, "They fly their way through the black, doing as they please, without any remorse. If you don't believe me, look at my face. It was their job."

Inara turned to look at Mal, who was surprised: "What? All I did was knock one or two of his teeth out. I didn't do THAT to him."

"These men..." Badger continued, "... live inside a Firefly-class ship, which they named Serenity."

Mal stood in awe, but Badger didn't stop: "They harbor two known fugitives, one well-known criminal, and besides that bugger-wave of theirs, they have caused many great thefts, such as train-robbery."

Mal didn't know what better to say than: "How does that (speaks Chinese) know what we did for that (speaks Chinese) Nishka?"

"Their captain, is Sergeant Malc..."

Mal had heard enough, so he grabbed one of Inara's precious china and threw it at the screen.

"You know, if you wanted me to just turn it off, you could have asked me." Inara said, unusually frigid, even for her.

"Wouldn't be fast enough." Mal replied as he was about to leave, "I didn't want to hear him call me Sergeant."


	7. Chapter 7

It didn't take long before Mal had gathered everyone in the dining room, to tell them the news. Everybody was shocked to hear this. Who'd have thought it that Badger would do something like that? Then again, given how impossible their lives had become, it wasn't at all that surprising.

"So now we're fugitives again?" Simon asked, "After everything we had to go through, he throws that back on us."

"That's just another excuse of his to not make our lives easy." Zoe reasoned.

"But that's not our biggest concern." Mal said, "It wasn't easy to just hide you two."

He pointed to Simon and River, after which he continued: "Now all of us must hide, as well as Serenity."

"How do you plan on doin' that?" Jayne asked, "You got us somethin' that makes this invisible?"

"Unless you got somethin' useful to say, don't open your mouth." Mal said.

Suddenly, something caused the ship to shock about. It knocked everybody to the ground, but didn't knock them unconscious yet. Everyone tried to get back to their feet.

"Wha' was that?" Jayne wondered.

"Still nothin' useful!" Mal remarked, as he started to run back to the cockpit.

But just as he did, he heard a weird sound, coming from the cargo bay. At the same time, River was having an emotional fit. She started screaming, begging for something to stop.

Simon tried to confort her: "It's okay, mei-mei. Nobody's gonna hurt you."

Mal wasn't too sure about that: "Zoe! Jayne! Come on with me!"

They went with him to the cargo-bay, where a group of three people had entered, having their guns raised at them.

"Well. This must be my lucky day." one of them, likely the leader, said.

Mal was about to take his own gun, but one of the other two shot off his belt that carried it. That's when the leader heard River scream, which indicated there were more people aboard than the three he saw.

"Come on out! All of you!" the leader shouted, "And don't try anythin'!"

"So that shock was your doing." Mal spoke, "You were trying to enter us."

"Only way to catch a pirate is to act like one." the leader laughed.

"Takes one to know one." Mal remarked.

"Indeed, so?" the leader asked.

Mal didn't know what to say. He thought he could say something witty, but he failed. To this, Inara said, when she entered the cargo-bay: "What a bad moment for jokes."

After her came Simon and Kaylee, who had to carry River into the bay. She had sensed something that got her freaked out. Which in turn was something nobody, including the pirates, could understand.

"Here we go again." Jayne complained, "Just when she needs to be a weapon, she crashed down."

Mal stepped on Jayne's toes: "What did I say about not talking?"

"This little thing is a weapon?" the leader said, as he approached her. Simon tried to stop him, but one of the other guys aimed his gun at him, forcing him to step back. The leader rubbed his hand over her face.

"No..." River cried, "Somebody kill me... I don't wanna hear him."

"This little thing's got spirit." the leader said, "I could have her..."

A shot sounded throughout the bay, followed by the leader crying in agony. Trying to get a grip on himself, he held his shoulder, which had started to bleed. He aimed his gun in all directions, hoping to shoot the one who shot him, but he couldn't find him. Mal thought to have seen his chance there, but the two other guys raised their guns towards him and his crew. There wasn't much he could do now.

"Show yourself, you coward!" the leader shouted.

"Says he who has muscles bigger than his guns, and guns bigger than the ones he's threatening." a voice said over the intercom.

"Ain't that that Ree..." Jayne started, until Zoe punched her elbow in his stomach.

"Shut up." she whispered.

"You're the one that's hiding." the leader reasoned.

"I'm still just one guy trying something against the three of you." the voice, which indeed belonged to Reese, said, "That's courage that you've been drained of."

"Don't you dare insult me!" the leader exclaimed.

"You're in no position to threaten me." Reese said, "With this visor I have here, I can shoot an ant at a mile's distance, and I'm aiming at your head with this."

This got the leader thinking. He looked around, until he saw something reflecting above him, where the shuttle-bay was found. This reflection must come from the visor Reese was referring to. The leader raised his gun and shot there where he saw the reflection.

"Nice try." Reese spoke through the intercom.

This made the leader mad: "How could I have missed?"

"Because I'm right here, asshole!" Reese's voice didn't come from the intercom this time, but somewhere behind the leader.

The leader turned around, only to see Reese, somewhere above him, holding a gun he had never seen before. Reese only shot once and killed the leader. The other two guys tried to shoot Reese, but that's when River had regained her common sense and started fighting them. Despite their size, or anything else these men tried to use, River had no trouble whatsoever to take these men down.


	8. Chapter 8

Once this fight was over, all Reese said was: "Exceeded my wildest expectations."

River smiled at that remark, after which Reese took something out of his pocket. That something looked like a grenade, yet that too had something peculiar about it.

"What..." Mal was startled, "What just happened?"

"He's a pacifist?" Kaylee questioned River about this.

"How long to disconnect this ship from theirs?" Reese asked, "And to get away from here?"

"Wh... what?" Mal was still startled.

"That... that would be about two minutes." Zoe replied, being much quicker to recover.

"Then I'd better set this to five, just in case." Reese replied, as he turned some kind of dial on the grenade, "Now, we'd better get these men back in their ships."

Reese already tried to pick up one of them, while River helped. Simon, as well as Kaylee, didn't know what to think of this, but if River, a mind-reader, is willing to help him, then there shouldn't be any problem. They both decided to take care of another one of the bodies, to carry it back to it's ship. Not knowing what else to do, Jayne did the same with the last body. Once all three of them were in the ship, Reese told something to Jayne.

"You'd better close the door when I throw this in there." he said, "Somebody'd better get to the cockpit to fly this thing away."

"Hang on one minute!" Mal came in between, "Why should we..."

"You'd rather stay here and get yourselves blown up?" Reese questioned, "Be my guest!"

Mal still didn't know what to think of all this, but he realized soon enough he'd better get to the ship's controls. That's when Reese threw the grenade into the ship, after which Jayne closed the door. Soon enough, the Firefly flew away, and after five minutes, it was away from the pirates' ship.

The first thing Reese could do with all this blown over, was return to his shuttle. In the door to it, he had placed a gun, which had a visor, which was what distracted that man earlier, believing him to think he'd find Reese there, while he was really somewhere else. As Reese picked up the weapon, he took a good look at it's visor, which was destroyed from that one gunshot.

"There goes one good visor." he sighed.

Before he could say, Mal had already reached Reese, put his hand on his shoulder so to turn him around and punch him in the face. Only just before Reese hit the ground, River stepped between them. She didn't do anything but look at Mal angrily.

"Will you please step away." Mal insisted, "That guy's got some explaining to do."

Reese tried to get up, saying: "... Okay, I'm not so sure I... auw..."

He feld a large amount of pain in his jaw, which got Simon concerned. He went to take a closer look at him.

"Of course the doc is backing up his sister." Mal sighed.

Simon only needed to examine him for two seconds, after which he decided: "I think it's best if I took a closer look at him. You may have broken his jaw."

"Only his jaw?" Jayne wondered, "Lemme take care of..."

"No Jayne, you won't take care of anything." Mal interrupted him, "Go ahead doc, do what you must."

Simon nodded, after which he helped Reese to the infirmary, followed closely by River.

"Looks like she's quite taken with him." Inara realized. "Wonder why."

"Wonder why she lied to us about him." Mal cursed.

"What about you, capt'n?" Jayne started, "You let the doc heal him, while we coulda forced more out of him!"

"But with a broken jaw, he won't be telling us much." Mal reasoned, ", while he's away, we can search his stuff."

This idea appeared apealing to Jayne, as well as Zoe, who said: "Let's see what weapons our 'pacifist' has."

First off, they looked at the weapons he had used against the pirates. They were of an unknown design to them, almost as if he had designed these himself. But Zoe thought otherwise.

"This is weird." she said, "They look like these guns you see in movies about Earth-as-it-was. These things haven't been used in centuries."

This caused everyone to look up surprised: "What are you saying?"

"You don't just walk into the stores and buy these." Zoe explained, "These things are han'-made."

"He made those things himself?" Jayne asked.

After whispering more Chinese, Mal said: "With own-made weapons, nobody'd be able to trace him. That's criminally smart."

"And what's this thingy supposed to be?" Jayne asked, referring to some kind of electronic device, with which he he turned and pressed on a few buttons, "It looks totally usel..."

He stopped talking once he, and everyone else, heard his voice over the intercom. Then Jayne tried it again, mumbling some Chinese, after which he said: "That's how we could hear his gorram voice. He had this thingy with him."

"Impressive things he's got." Inara remarked, "He looks more prepared than you've ever been.

"Capt'n!" Kaylee called from the shuttle, where she looked through Reese's bag, "Look at this!"

Mal went to see what Kaylee was talking about. Reese had a bag with him, from which Kaylee had taken some of it's contents. Mostly, it was food and water, or some form there-of, some more grenades like the one Reese used earlier, and some spare bullets. But the most disturbing contents were let in the bag. They looked like dark green plastic blocks. Mal went to take a closer look, as these things had something familiar about them. Zoe followed him, and like Mal, she picked up one of these blocks and smelled it.

"This what I think it is?" Mal asked Zoe.

"It is, sir." Zoe confirmed.

"What is it?" Kaylee asked.

"Plastic explosives." Mal answered, at which Kaylee gave a short yell.

"But why would he be carrying those around?" Mal questioned, though he sounded like he knew the answer.

"You think..." Zoe hesitated, "He has something to do with what happened to the village?"

"Let's wait for the doc to be done with that character, and then ask him yourself." Mal decided, after which he put the explosives back in the bag, then turned to Kaylee: "You'd best make sure this shuttle doesn't get too hot, or these things may explode."

"No need to tell me, capt'n." Kaylee replied, after which she hurried to the engine room.

Just when she left, Jayne decided to enter the shuttle: "So, what do we know about 'em?"

"Enough to go see the doc." Mal replied.


	9. Chapter 9

Once everyone had arrived at the infirmary, Simon hadn't yet finished what he needed to do with Reese. Whatever he was doing, it appeared complicated enough to suggest that he had hurt him badly enough.

Simon, who had noticed Mal coming in, started: "Well, the good news is it's not broken. Bad news is that if I don't put this on him, his jaw will worsen and eventually become useless. He won't be talking much for the time being."

"Not easy to do the right thing." River suddenly remarked.

"What do you mean?" Mal asked her.

"You're looking at the wrong person." she added, "She's not the one talking."

This caused some confusion among the ship's crew. Kaylee was the first to show some concern: "Are you alright?"

"I'm right here." River said, after which Simon made a scared grunt.

"What's the matter doc?" Jayne asked, "Seen a ghost?"

"You're not too far off." Simon replied, "Just when River said 'I'm right here', he raised his hand."

This sounded ridiculous to Mal: "You got scared because he raised his hand?"

"No!" Simon said, "It happened simultaneously, almost as if..."

Whatever Simon wanted to say, it sounded to weird for him to say, but Jayne convinced him to say it: "As if what? What could be so gorram scary about that?"

"Wait a minute." Simon said, after which he started to Reese: "What's your name?"

"Reese." River said.

That's when Simon asked another question: "How old are you?"

"Nineteen." River answered.

This was a mystery easily solved to Simon: "Whatever he's thinking, he got River to tell us."

"Precisely." River said, or rather Reese said through River.

"Hang on!" Zoe intervened, "How does he know River can read minds?"

"Because I'm the one who first heard of it." Reese explained.

"How's that possible?" Zoe asked.

For some reason, Simon was surprised, but appeared to be deep in thoughts about something.

"Are you okay?" Kaylee asked him.

"The only ones I can think of who may know this of River..." Simon answered, "... are those from the underground resistance."

Reese smiled: "Exactly, Tam."

Simon turned to River: "Why do you call me by our last name?"

"Don't blame your sister for what I'm thinking." Reese thought, but River spoke, which caused some more confusion.

"Alright, this is getting too much." Mal said, "Why don't you just tell us who you are exactly, why you're really here, and..."

"Er... Malcolm." Reese said, "I'd love to answer all your questions, but right now I need some sustenance."

"You need what?" Mal asked, "And what makes you think you could..."

"I had set an extra plate for you earlier." River said to Reese, "Why don't you join us?"

Reese may have thought something, but apparently River thought his facial expression was enough to suggest he wouldn't refuse such an offer. He got off the operation table and followed River to the dining room.

"... call... me... by my first name." Mal finished his sentence.


	10. Chapter 10

The food in question wasn't what one would call solid, so Reese didn't need to bite anything when eating. He took as much as he needed and started eating. River, being much of an interpreter for him, sat herself next to him.

"Their first dinner together." Inara laughed.

This, however, appeared to disturb Simon: "What do you mean?"

"Hey!" Jayne exclaimed, "Whatcha doin', sitting on my seat?"

"Since when has this become your seat?" River questioned.

"You don't live here, so you wouldn't know!" Jayne pointed to Reese.

"That wasn't Reese who was talking." River added.

Knowing that River could easily take him down if she wanted, he decided to back away.

"Alright, since we've all got that out of our system..." Mal started.

"I suppose I should tell you who I am." Reese thought, but River spoke.

"That be a start!" Mal exclaimed, while crossing his arms, waiting for Reese to say anything.

"My mother was born from a man who..." Reese started.

"Did I ask for your life story?" Mal interrupted.

"You wanna know what I'm doing here? You'd better listen." Reese insisted.

Although it was River who spoke for him, and therefor impersonating whatever emotion went through him, she looked like she agreed to whatever thought Reese had. Since Reese wasn't about to give them any easier way to satisfy their curiosity, Mal decided to go along with it.

"Fine." Mal sighed, as he sat down on the chair that was furthest away from Reese.

The other crew members followed his example of sitting down. Zoe and Jayne felt the same as Mal, so Jayne sat on the table, away from Reese, and Zoe sat on another chair that was furthest away. Simon, being the overly concerned brother he is, sat himself next to River, along with Kaylee. Inara, being more neutral, didn't sit down at all.

"As I was saying." Reese continued, "... my mother was born from a man who owned much of an entire planet. Naturally, when he died, my mother inherited everything, got married to someone of the same social class,... the ancient tale of birds of a feather flocking together."

"What're ya sayin'?" Jayne wondered, "You're a rich kid?"

"Not really." Reese replied, "My parents were rich. I was just a kid they owned."

"What's that mean?" Zoe asked.

"To them, I was much more of a pet." Reese replied, "That is, I could have everything I wanted, eat what I want, do what I want..."

"That doesn't sound so bad." Zoe remarked.

"As long as I don't go out and play in the grass when I was a child." Reese continued, uninterruptedly, "As long as I don't eat something that has less than five syllables, and as long as it ain't even something like a toy gun."

This surprised Mal: "Aren't you a little too old..."

"I was talking about when I was a kid, dumbass." Reese interrupted, "Point is that my life was controlled. As long as I stay within the boundaries that parents had set, I would always have a dull life."

"So what? You joined the resistance?" Simon asked.

"Don't go ahead of things, Tam." Reese insisted.

"Oh, and Reese." River suddenly turned to talk to him, "Could you please just call him Simon?"

Reese appeared to be in thoughts, then nodded, after which River continued saying what he was thinking: "I apologize. It's how I always referred to you back then."

"That's alright." Simon replied.

"Anyhow..." Reese continued, "... I didn't join them before I started rebeling against my own parents."

"Really?" Mal didn't at all sounded surprised, "What did you do? Destroy all your parents china? Take some of their money and spend it on tattoo's?"

"Actually, no." Reese replied, "Rebeling doesn't necessarily mean to be destructive or mutilate yourself. It plain simply means to defy authority."

Once Reese saw how much anyone understood this, or rather not at all, Reese explained: "Doing things that your superiors don't want you to do. Doing what my parents don't want me to do."

"Then what did you do? Exactly?" Mal asked.

Reese answered: "I read a few books..."

"You read books?" Jayne sounded astonished, "You rebeled by readin' books?"

"By reading those my parents don't want me to read, yes." Reese replied, "By doing so, I discovered one or two things about our solar system and our way of life, which also explained why nobody wanted me to read these books."

"Oh really?" Mal still sounded sarcastic, "And what may that be?"

"You folks know why our ancestors left their home-planet to live here?" Reese asked.

"Since when did this become a history lesson?" Jayne sighed.

Simon, trying to be more serious: "Wasn't it because there were too many of us?"

"Too many?" Mal questioned, "I thought Earth was just used up."

"So did I." Kaylee agreed.

Inara laughed: "You guys wouldn't believe all the stories I heard during my training as a companion."

This news surprised Mal: "Your training had history-lessons?"

"Everyone in the system believes something else." Inara explained, "We're just being thought many of those believes, so we can converse with our clients more easily."

Reese grinned: "As you can see, much of our history contradicts itself. Luckely, somebody was able to keep some newspapers that dated from just after they arrived here. He has even taken some papers from Earth to here."

"Why would anyone wanna do that?" Jayne asked.

"Likely because he was worried about what may become of this system." Reese answered, "And he was right. What those newspapers said was never mentioned in our history books."

"And what would that be?" Mal asked him.

"Back on Earth, two of the worlds most powerful forces had formed an alliance." Reese told them.

"Yes, we know that." Mal replied, "Tell us something we don't (speaks Chinese) know."

"That that alliance had formed one big enough force, it controlled virtually the entire world." Reese replied, "Wether people liked it or not."

"Sounds familiar." Zoe replied.

Reese shrugged: "For that reason, a small group of people had formed a undergound group. Together, they discovered a solarsystem, lightyears away from Earth. An entire system of hundreds of planets and moons, circling a blue giant."

"Wait a minute." Kaylee interrupted, "Why going so far? Doesn't Earth's system had any other planets or moons?"

"It does." Reese replied, "But they were already colonized, under the same leadership. So they had to move somewhere else."

"I see." Kaylee understood.

Reese continued: "Given the sun they were set off to go, they dubbed this operation 'Blue Sun'."

"Blue Sun?" this sounded familiar to everyone, but Mal was the one saying this.

"Indeed." Reese replied, "It were those same people who helped our ancestors move here, who have established the factory. With it, they manufactured more machines to terraform other planets, made all the necessary ships to transport them,... you name it. They did everything to make life in this system possible, and did nothing that the old alliance back on Earth did."

"They don't sound so bad." Jayne remarked, "Wonder why anyone would destroy it's headquarters on Cronus."

"Yeah well..." Reese added, "... it wouldn't be the first time people rebelled against their governments by starting one of their own, which eventually turned into one that was as bad, if not worse than the last. History has a nasty habbit of repeating itself."

"Oh really?" Mal questioned.

"With Blue Sun being the one source of many of our needs, they have the monopoly over the solar-system." Reese explained, "If the entire system were to fall under one government, Blue Sun would have more people to buy their products, making them even richer than before. Not to mention of course that the more power one has, the more likely it is that people want to take it away. Among other things, all this lead to such joyfull events, like the Unification War. Or..."

Reese motioned his head to point to River, after which he continued: "The kidnapping of an innocent girl, trying to forge her into a weapon."

"Forge her?" Simon said.

"I know, she's not something you play with." Reese replied, "So if you wanna go and tell that to those people, be my guest, but I don't think they'll listen to you."

"So when did you join the resistance?" Zoe asked.

"I was suddenly contacted by them." Reese replied, "My guess is that judging from my clothes, they figured I was rich. Also, I went to places that you'd usually not find anyone of my so-called social class."

"Didn't that get them a little suspicious?" Mal wondered.

"At first, yes." Reese answered, "But as soon as they knew who I was, what I was doing, and what I've found out, they asked me to join them."

"They didn't know about what happened on Earth?" Simon asked.

"No." Reese replied, "They only knew that our system was beginning to look like a totalitarian system. It was that that got them started in the first place."

"Bottom line is, they made you an offer you couldn't refuse." Kaylee stated.

"Joinin' them, shootin' some bastards. How could anyone refuse?" Jayne laughed.

"Actually, I'm not much of a fighter." Reese replied.

"Really?" Zoe questioned.

"Even when I joined, I only fought whenever they were one man short." Reese replied.

"So they wanted you to join them, why?" Mal asked, "Can't imagine they wanted anyone who's unwilling to fight."

"They hoped that I could fund their goals. But that wasn't the only thing I did." Reese answered, "I managed to find some old books that tell about old weapons. The type that hasn't been made in centuries. A little old-fashioned, maybe, but they have proven to be quite effective against any sort of high-tech."

"It's sometimes better to do things the old-fashioned way." Inara said.

"And obviously, you also found out about my sister." Simon figured.

"No, that was someone else." Reese replied, "But he did find out about what kind of experiments were conducted on her. Much of it was quite technical, if not a bit cerebral, I too only understood half of it. But from what I gathered, it looked like they were doing tests about telepathy."

"Tele-what?" Jayne asked.

"Mind-reading." Simon answered.

"But like I said, it was all quite techinical, so that idea was pure speculative." Reese continued, "I didn't know it for sure until... well, when that gorilla over there had me in his grip."

"It wasn't a gorilla." Jayne remarked, "It was me."

" 'Nyone coulda made that mistake." Mal remarked.

Before Jayne could say anything else, Zoe asked: "How could you know?"

"Wasn't that hard, really." Reese replied, "When I saw her, I immediately recognized her. Couldn't be sure it was her, but when Malcolm started asking her questions to which she couldn't know the answer..."

"First of all, when did I tell you to stop calling me Captain Reynolds?" Mal asked, "Second of all, that still doesn't explain why..."

"I better explain this." River said, as she stood up, "I heard him thinking about a lot of things. When he saw me, he thought 'that's the girl we saved'. It was then I knew I could trust him. Later, he even recognized the name of this ship."

"He did?" Kaylee couldn't believe it.

"He has heard of Serenity before, and from what he heard he pictured her to look differently." River explained.

"You mean he didn't expect it to look like an ol... ouch!" Simon started, but Kaylee pinched him before he could finish.

"Once he was sure I could hear him, he asked me not to tell anyone what I've heard from him." River continued, "It was too important to just tell anyone, and he still wasn't sure you guys could be trusted."

"He trusts us now?" Mal asked.

River was about to say something, but then she changed her mind and said: "He told me not to say it. What he wants you to know is that the incident with those pirates has blown his cover, so he has no choice but to come clean with you."

"Blown his cover?" Mal questioned, "Nobody asked you to help."

"Given the situation you were in, would you have asked anything to anyone at all?" River said, but now used Reese's more serious tone, to indicate she's talking for him now.

"Starting to get used to that." Simon remarked.

"Anyway, the choice was easy." Reese explained, "Either I sit down and do nothing, risking everything the resistance fought for, or I get up and do something. Anything! Judging from River's emotional burst, I thought she needed to hear one more peaceful thought, mine, and three scared thoughts, theirs. What she did then wasn't at all what I expected her to do, but it helped."

"Is that what you meant when you said 'exceeded all my expectations'?" Simon asked.

"Yes." Reese answered.

"You still haven't told us what you're doing here." Mal brought up.

Reese had stopped eating, got up and headed to his shuttle. He motioned everyone to come along, which they did. Hesitantly, but they followed him all the same.


	11. Chapter 11

While the Serenity crew was getting wiser, or more confused, there was another activity going on somewhere else. At a space station, where many people were screaming. In here, was where Nishka could be found. He wasn't alone, as he had Badger for company. Suddenly, somebody entered the office.

"Sir, a Firefly has just been spotted at that back-water planet." he said.

"Really?" Nishka sounded surprised.

"No offense, mate..." Badger started.

"Please, Mr. Badger..." Nishka interrupted, "Don't say no offense, if you were going to offend me."

Badger didn't understand: "I'm sorry?"

"You called me your 'mate', and do I look like your mate?" Nishka replied, though he didn't particularly sound offended.

Badger made a fist, but managed to control his anger: "I'm sorry. But as I was saying, if this Firefly was that Reynold's, he might have some friends on any back-water planet."

"Oh yes." Nishka suddenly saw the point he was making, "Yes, he may."

He then turned to the other man: "Have you found that place I asked you to seek, Mr. Murdock?"

"Yes, sir." the man, Murdock, answered.

"Good." Nishka said, "Then you know what to do."

Back at Serenety, Reese had guided everyone to the shuttle. Before he arrived, Jayne said: "He ain't gonna blow us up now, is he?"

Hearing this, Reese looked in his direction, surprised, after which River explained: "They searched your stuff while Simon took care of you."

Reese raised an eyebrow, at which River added: "No, nobody took anything."

"Okay now..." Mal started, "Before you two (speaks Chinese) will confuse us even more, how about you tell us why we're here."

At that moment, Reese picked up his bag, showed them the plastic explosives, then explained, through River: "I take it you've heard of Blue Sun's destruction, have you."

"Wait a minute, that was you?" Jayne asked.

"Why doesn't that surprise me." Mal replied, "In other words, it's you who..."

"Created the power vacuum?" Reese interrupted, "Yes."

Mal was starting to build up anger: "So you made it harder for us to find jobs..."

"If you're thinking about taking punishing me for trying to do the right thing..." Reese interrupted, "... I already had Fu Manchu take care of that."

This nobody quite understood, so Mal asked: "Fu who?"

"It's a literary character." Simon explained, "Someone from Earth-as-it-was."

"Don't worry." Reese said, "I didn't expect you would know him. Much less that what we did..."

That's when Reese started to look sad and River stopped speaking for him.

"What's going on?" Kaylee asked.

"Do you want me to tell them what you see?" River asked Reese.

"And what do you mean 'we'?" Zoe asked them.

Reese appeared too emotional to say anything, but apparently knew that River has seen what he was thinking, so he motioned her to tell them, which she did: "He along with three others went to visit Cronus. He made it out alive, but the other three died just so he'd still be alive."

"They died for him?" Mal sounded surprised.

"They died, to use his words, for a burden he didn't want to carry." River replied.

"A burden?" Mal was still surprised: "What might that be?"

"The entire resistance had searched for anything that would help, if some other guy would take advantage of this situation." Reese explained.

"What does that mean?" Jayne asked.

"Among other things..." Reese explained, "...that PAX thing, that helped to create those Reavers. Someone's been trying to forge it into a drug."

Everyone looked worried at the sound of that, but it was Kaylee who spoke: "Forge it... into... a drug?"

"Depending on who uses it, people will either be too passive, or too agressive." Reese explained, "Either way, if anyone gets addicted to this,..."

"But why would anyone want people to get addicted to that stuff?" Mal didn't understand.

"Business." Inara explained, "The more people get affected by the drug, the more it sells."

"It's worse than that." Reese continued, "A counterdrug has been made. Take it and it will neutralize the PAX."

"And whoever controls the neutralizer..." Mal suddenly understood.

"Controls the 'Verse." Zoe finished the sentence for him.

"So we've got some of that neutralizer hidden somewhere." Reese continued, "This way, nobody will be in control."

"Well then..." Mal started, "... why won't you tell us where this is, so we can drop you off."

"Capt'n?" Kaylee was surprised, "What about this PAX, do you really want it to come back?"

"We got other things to do." Mal reminded her, "Like looking for who burned down Gommen's village."

Suddenly, Reese started to be less emotional. Rather, he showed grieve before, but it suddenly turned into rage.

This didn't go unnoticed, particularly by Kaylee: "Now what's wrong with him?"

"He was there when Gommen's village was burned down." River replied.

"He was? And he didn't do anything?" Mal sounded enraged.

Before River could say anything, Mal had already started towards him. River could only just come in between the two, which enraged Mal: "Oh come on, you barely even know this guy, why are you protecting him?"

Jayne agreed: "Yeah, he been here for what? Some hours?"

"If you want to kill him..." River warned them.

"River, please don't!" Simon interrupted her.

The argument went on like this for a while. Nobody appeared to notice, however, that Reese was taking a handgun out of his pocket, loaded it with two bullets, each of which he had kept in another pocket, then shot once. Everyone got spooked by the sound of the shot. As soon as everyone realized it was Reese who did the shooting, Mal was about to attack him again: "What're you trying to...!"

Before he could finish his sentence, Reese pointed his gun to the shuttle's window. That's when Mal backed away.

River, who didn't need to see this to know, spoke with Reese's serious tone again: "That first shot was a blank. Do you wanna risk the next to be the same?"

To this, Jayne had a reply at the ready: "While you're here yah-self?"

"Either I shoot and we all die, or I don't and you kill me." Reese replied, "Tough decision."

"Who said anythin' about killin'?" Mal asked, though he didn't sound like he meant it.

"Whatever you're about to do, you will not avenge anything. In fact, it won't do that village any justice whatsoever." Reese answered.

"And when are you gonna tell us why that is?" Mal asked.

"I will, once we've all quieted down and you've heard me out!" Reese exclaimed, "Trust me, you do anything, and my friends, the people at that village, they'd have all died for nothing."

This seemed to make Mal, as well as anyone else, quiet down for a moment. Simon, however was confused: "You'd actually back up a guy who's about to kill all of us?"

River looked at her brother, then said: "We have similar goals, and yet you're all standing in his way."

"What?" this made particularly Mal anxious again, until Reese made his gun click to remind him where he's standing. Still enraged, Mal backed away: "So, what makes you so important?"

"Because I'm the only one who can access the neutralizer." Reese answered, through River, "It needs my eye-dent, my hand-print and my access-code."

"Still don't see how that made you so important." Mal said sarcastically.

"It's easy." Reese shrugged, though not so delighted as one might expect, "I was the one who provided the resistance all they needed to make this. In the end, they all felt only one of us should be able to access it."

"So in the event only one of you get caught, they can't use him to access it." Zoe figured.

"That explains why your friends gave their lives." Simon realized.

Reese looked depressed when he heard him say that. Mal, however, knew just the right thing to say to bring him out of that state: "Wait a minute! You said if we let you go, those villagers would have died for nothin'? What do they have to do with it?"

Reese looked depressed again, but it didn't stop River from talking for him: "The villagers were attacked, because he was looking for him."

"He?" Mal asked.

"Nishka." Reese finally admitted, "The guy who made that PAX-drug.

Everyone was shocked to hear that. Reese didn't know this, but apparently the crew has a history with Nishka. Reese meant to ask them, but River didn't say anything. He looked at her, and saw her rubbing her throat. All the talking has taken much from her. Telepathically, Reese gave her the suggestion to rest her voice, at which River nodded. Still, Simon didn't appear to approve of much of this: "River, a word."

Knowing him better than anyone else, Kaylee advised: "I think you might wanna leave for a moment."

"What?" Mal sounded disappointed, "It was about to get interesting."

"No Kaylee, they should all hear this!" Simon was never as angry before, as he was at that precise moment, "How could you possibly protect him? He admitted what he's done, was about to do some things to us, and you're still protecting him?"

"You don't know what he's been through!" River shouted back at him, ignoring the pain in her throat, "You don't know what happened to him before he arrived at the village, how he got there,... you know nothing!"

"Sounds to me like you've seen a lot from his mind." Inara said, sounding concerned.

"Too much." River said, as she quieted down a little, "It's like... it's like..."

Simon appeared to understand, but still didn't believe it: "You're saying he's... you're not saying he's been tortured and..."

River didn't budge at all, as she had suddenly collapsed. Again, she started to spout what sounded like insane babble. Simon wanted to comfort her, but Reese had cut in between them. He shook his head.

"I gotta agree with Kaylee." Mal said, "Let's leave them alone for a minute."

Upon saying this, he left the shuttle, along with the rest of the crew. Simon hesitated, but Kaylee managed to drag him out.


	12. Chapter 12

"So..." Mal started, once the door to the shuttle was shut behind them, "What should we make of him?"

"Or you?" Inara remarked.

Mal didn't seem to be pleased with that remark: "Me? I'm not the mystery guy here."

"And if wasn't for you, we'd know more about him than we do now." Inara replied.

"If he would give us a straight answer, we wouldn't be standing here!" Mal insisted, "But instead, he talked about how sad he is, some guy we've never heard of,... but still we don't know what he wants from us."

"Actually, he did tell us, sir." Zoe reasoned, "He's just taking 'vantage of us."

"I don't know." Simon said, "River made it seem he was tortured at some point. Then again... I'm not sure I know River anymore."

That's when Mal had the answer: "So Reese was in Nishka's hands, going through the same pains I've been through, but maybe for longer than a day, somehow finds out about Nishka making that drug, somehow escapes, gets to Gommen's village, but not without being followed. But Nishka couldn't find him, so he torches down the village."

"Sounds reasonable." Inara said, "But if he's indeed been tortured, he may have stayed with them for a while, just to recover from his wounds. That may have created a bond between him and the villagers."

"So it may have gotten to a point that he shared his story with them too." Kaylee deduced, "So that's why he feels angry about their deaths."

"But he didn't do anythin' about this?" Jayne questioned, "I would do somethin'."

"If you were alone with simple farmers against a whole army of sadists?" Mal questioned back.

Jayne became silent after that question. Obviously, he hadn't thought about that.

Meanwhile, there was still something else that bugged Mal: "But what about the PAX? Does anyone have an idea about how Nishka even knew where to look for that?"

"I'm not sure." Simon replied, as he suddenly started to go downstairs, "Not yet."

Mal remarked, "Doesn't anyone give straight answers anymore?"

Nevertheless, everyone followed Simon, see what it is he was doing.

Whatever it was Simon had in mind, it somehow had him examine the chair that Reese sat on earlier, take something that looked like dust to the novice, but of more significance to a doctor. Simon took this to the infirmery and put it under a microscope.

"Well?" Mal was getting inpatient.

Simon sighed: "It's not my area of expertise, but I'm sure I've seen this before."

"Then what is it?" Mal asked.

"It looks like the PAX, except..." Simon answered, "... it seems to have a higher amount of (uses a chemistry term)."

"That wasn't even Chinese." Jayne remarked.

"It's a form of anaesthetics." Simon explained, "There seems to be a lot of it in there. It's almost like whoever used this wanted it to work instantly."

"It's different version of the PAX, then?" Zoe remarked.

"He already said that Nishka was working on some." Kaylee reminded them.

"Maybe." Simon agreed, "Except at the rate this has decayed, it looks like it's been on him for months. Which would coincide with him blowing up Blue Sun."

"He used PAX on Blue Sun?" Zoe asked.

"Makes sense." Mal said, "It was supposed to relax people, right? And they wanted to blow up an entire building. If everyone inside was gassed with this, there'd be no resistance against the resistance."

"But wouldn't they get gassed too?" Jayne asked.

"They would, unless they had masks." Zoe remarked.

"So that's why he has some of it on his clothes." Simon decided, "If he had to walk around while it was still in the air."

"After all those months?" Kaylee questioned.

"You never got a stain on your clothes you can't wash away, no matter how many times you wash it?" Inara made an example.

"So with that on his clothes, someone like Nishka could've found it easily and change it into something a lot worse, to fit his agenda." Mal sighed, "Finally, a straight answer!"

"So what?" Jayne asked, "We gonna go to that place he mentioned?"

Mal thought about this for a moment, then said: "Think I got a better idea."

With this, he left them to go to the shuttle.

Once he arrived, he opened the door. He saw River and Reese. The latter was still sitting down, while the former had already stood up before Mal arrived.

"So, what else can you tell me?" Mal asked.

Reese, for obvious reasons, couldn't say anything. River, on the other hand, didn't seem very talkative. In fact, it appeared as though she couldn't wait to leave the room. When she did, Mal didn't do anything to stop him.

"Well then..." Mal sounded more or less pleased, "... that should make this easier. Whatever I got to say to you, you don't need River to speak for you. Here's what we'll do, Reese."

Reese turned his head to listen. Mal explained: "We're gonna drop you off at the planet where broadcasted what that which had overthrown the government. There, you can rebuild your resistance, and we'll go about our own business. Dong ma?"

Reese tried to say something, but couldn't. It took him some seconds to be reminded of that, which caused some annoyance with him. Out of frustration, he punched his elbow into the wall behind him, which did seem to hurt him quite a lot.

"Easy now. You may break that wall." Mal said.

All Reese could do was growl. Clearly, there was a part of that plan that he didn't like, but he couldn't say it out loud. Mal even appeared to enjoy this.

"Nice knowing you, Reese." Mal said as he was about to leave, "If that's even your real name."

When Mal returned to the cockpit, he had immediately set a course to the planet he mentioned. Inara, who had entered the cockpit shortly after, had asked Mal what he was up to, to which he gave an answer, which didn't appear to please her much.

"You'd just send him to that planet and leave him there all by himself?" she sounded upset.

"He's not a baby that needs company." Mal replied, "Don't think anyone would like to..."

"Maybe you wouldn't like him. But there are others on this ship who might." Inara reasoned.

"And who may that be? You?" Mal asked her.

Inara didn't give him a straight answer: "If I did, why would you care?"

"I... why would I...?" Mal muttered, "Okay, enough already. I've made up my mind, I'm droppin' him off here."

"And what about Nishka?" Inara persisted, "Since when are you so forgiving to let him just do as he pleases? Don't you at least want to find him because of what he's done to you?

Mal thought about this for a few seconds, then shook his head: "I'm sure I'll get to him sooner or later. But now I've got more hurrying-up matters."

As Inara was about to leave, she added: "For what it's worth, you look a lot more like Reese than you wanna admit."

She left, but Mal did nothing to call her back.


	13. Chapter 13

While Serenity was closing in on the planet, Kaylee was looking for something. Whatever it was, she couldn't find it. Then she remembered she last used it in the ship's secret compartment, so it may still be there. When she went to the compartment, opened it to look for it, she got scared out of her wits when she found River there.

"River?" she exclaimed, questioningly, "What are you doing here?"

"I like it here." she answered.

"But there are lots of other places where you can be." Kaylee tried to convince her, "You don't have to be in here."

"He doesn't know about this place, so he won't find me." River replied.

"Who doesn't kno...?" Kaylee asked, but then she realized there's only one person on the ship who wouldn't know about this, "You mean Reese? Why are you so afraid of him all the sudden?"

"Just leave me alone!" River shouted.

Kaylee wasn't about ready to give up on River. She sat down and asked her: "What happened while we were away?"

"We talked." River replied, "He told me some things about what happened to him."

"You mean like what happened to him when Nishka had him?" Kaylee asked.

"How did you know?" River asked.

"I must be a psychic too." Kaylee lied, and River knew it.

Once she heard the truth from Kaylee's mind, she continued: "You're right, that's what happened to him. I even shared with him some of my experiences. But then he told me he knew most of it already."

"Oh?" Kaylee sounded surprised.

"His resistance group had broken into an Alliance building, long before they tried to look for Blue Sun's head quarters." River told her, "They stole some files that seemed important to them and Reese looked through all of them."

"And that's how he knew about you being held captive." Kaylee completed for her, "You already told us."

"I only told you what he told me." River replied, "But... he didn't tell me everything then."

This made Kaylee more than a little curious: "What didn't he tell us, then?"

River, who appeared afraid of saying anything, managed to say the following: "He told me that he needed to survive Nishka, no matter what. His grieve for what happened to his friends had kept him from going insane."

"Sounds good." Kaylee failed to see the problem.

"But that's not what kept him going." River added, "With his friends dead, he's the last living member of the resistance. He didn't have much hope for their work to be fulfilled."

"Really?" Kaylee was puzzled then.

"I then asked him what kept him going, and..." River appeared hesitant to reply.

"And... what? What did he say?" Kaylee asked.

River then had her emotional fit: "It was ME! He only went on because of ME! He's seen tapes of me! He's read my files! He..."

Kaylee tried to calm her down: "Wait! Hold on! Calm down!"

She held River's arms, trying to keep her in control, then asked: "You saying he had a crush on you, and that is what got him to escape?"

River looked at Kaylee, surprised she's taking it lightly. Kaylee explained: "Isn't that a good thing? How his crush on you got him to do what he does? How he..."

"Stop it!" River shouted, after which she tried to calm down.

"Then again, I'm disgusted of him." Kaylee said, "I mean, he called Serenity an old piece, or didn't even have this in mind when he thought of her. I have every reason to hate him, especially if..."

"I don't hate him." River interrupted her, "Why would I hate him, he understands me better than anyone? He knows I can hear his thoughts and yet sees me as a person? He..."

"Wait a minute..." Kaylee then interrupted her, "You don't like him, do you?"

"No!" River answered, quickly, "I mean... I... I like Simon, I like you..."

"But it's different with Reese, isn't it?" Kaylee asked, after which River fell in silence, "You're in love, but you don't know how to deal with it."

"Do you hate me now?" River asked, "You just said you don't..."

"I know what I said." Kaylee interrupted her again, "But if he means so much to you, who am I to come between you two?"

"I..." River tried to say something, "I wish I knew what I should do."

"There's nothing difficult about it, really." Kaylee answered to her, "You like him, he likes you. What more do you need?"

"I'd like to hear him say it." River answered.

"Oh come on!" Kaylee exclaimed, "You already..."

"I only know it because I heard him think it." River interrupted, "And he knew I could hear him, no matter what. It just... just doesn't feel the same as hearing him say it."

"What are you two doing there?" Mal had just arrived, seeing them.

"Nothing." Kaylee replied, "We were just talking."

"Well then, stop talking, get outta there and get ready." Mal commanded them, "We're about to land."


	14. Chapter 14

Mal landed near a mansion, except that he didn't particularly liked what he saw. It looked like this, too, was set on fire, as smoke came from out of the building.

"No... this is not possible!" he exclaimed, but that didn't change the scenery.

Angry, he got out of his seat and ran to Reese's shuttle, as fast as he could.

On his way, he did run into other members of the ship's crew. He ignored the, as he came closer to Reese, opened the shuttle's door, entered, grabbed him by his collar, shouting: "What did you do? Did you thought Mr. Universe was with Blue Sun?"

Reese raised an eyebrow, so to say he didn't know what Mal was talking about. Mal turned to shout, but got spooked when River was already in the doorway.

"I didn't even shout for you yet." Mal said, laughingly.

He waited for River to say something, but instead she merely stared and said nothing.

"What? He's thinking somethin' I don't wanna hear?" Mal asked her.

As if in a trance, River didn't reply to him. As Simon arrived at the scene, he noticed how she looked. Worried, her examined her: "River, what's wrong?"

Noticing how she stared at Reese, Simon then asked: "What did he do to you?"

Kaylee had to come between them: "Shh... come on, lemme tell you something."

"What's wrong, capt'n?" Zoe asked.

Mal had some difficulty to tell her, but he did anyway.

Shortly after he told her, she told everyone else, and the entire crew left the ship to check it out. They checked the whole mansion, only to find it completely torn down.

"What happened here?" Inara wondered.

"Well, this ain't no place to leave anybody alone." Kaylee said.

"So we're still stuck with him?" Jayne whined.

Hearing Jayne say that, Mal turned back to Reese: "You got some special power too? Can you blow things up by just thinking about it? Is that why you and the girl are..."

"Mal, please." Inara interrupted him, "Don't go blaming everything on him."

Reese, meanwhile tried to take that which kept him from talking off, but failed to do so. He was doomed to hear every one of Mal's accusations and/or insults.

"Oh come on!" Mal insisted, "We've seen someone who can hear our thoughts, so why can't someone like that exist?"

"That still doesn't explain why..." Inara started.

"And he knew we were gonna leave him, so he set this all up, only to..." Mal continued.

That's when Reese walked up to Mal, touched his shoulder, causing him to turn around, after which he punched him in the face. This did hurt his hand, but he didn't care, as long as Mal got what was coming to him. This did, however, cause both Zoe and Jayne to start towards him, about to launch another attack at them. Reese could only just avoid their first attack, only to be helped by River, before they could try anything else. Nothing she did seriously injured them, but they were down either way.

Meanwhile, Simon was distracted to see his sister act that way. Although Kaylee had told him about how she felt about Reese, he still had a hard time to comprehend. But with him being distracted, he failed to notice Kaylee spotting something on the floor, which she picked up.

Once the two were down, Reese tilted his head sideways, failing to realize himself why River would do this. All the while, Mal managed to pull himself together, got up, tried to run to Reese, but River stopped him.

"I don't know what happened here." she said, although the serious tone she used indicated she was talking for Reese again, "How could I destroy a place of which I never before knew it existed, let alone know where to find it?"

Inara laughed at that: "A (speaks Chinese) hardhead like you would never think of that, right Mal?"

Reese looked stupified at Inara's choice of words, as the Chinese words she used were the type that they'd teach you not to use at school.

"Capt'n!" Kaylee called for him, "You may wanna see this."

Hearing her, Mal came over to her, turning his head to give a distrustful look at Reese. He looked at what Kaylee found. It appeared to be a mini-screen. Seeing it, Mal asked: "What is it?"

"I just found it here." Kaylee, "It looks to be in one piece."

"It must've been dropped by the real per'trater." Zoe thought out loud.

Mal pressed a button on the screen which then started playing. It had a face on it that everybody recognized: Nishka.

"Hello there, Mal." he said, sounding his usual unnaturally happy self, "If you are seeing this, it must mean I'm getting close to finding you. I thought you would come here, where you have shown us all that message."

This statement was followed by laughter, which only made Mal only more angry. Reese already made a few steps back, but River assured him: "Don't worry. He knows he must have tracked this mansion down and you couldn't possibly have something to do with it."

"Now you've ruined my chance to punch him." Mal mumbled, "Now I must find something else to punch!"

Reese appeared to laugh at that, only slightly, as the situation was still a little too serious for anyone to start laughing.

"So what do we do now, capt'n?" Kaylee asked, "What if Nishka knows about other planets we've visited and done the same there?"

"I don't suppose we could use some of your plastic explosives again to blow him up?" Jayne asked Reese.

This appeared to give Mal a moment of epiphany: "Jayne, that's the smartest idea you've had in a long time!"

Reese raised an eyebrow, after which River spoke for him: "And you guys didn't think of doing this before, because...?"

"Because last time we tried, we only barely survived him." Zoe replied, "Not to mention he got away."

"We've got ourselves one better fighter than we had before." Mal reminded them.

"We're still one man shorter than we were then, Mal." Jayne remarked.

"Since when can you do any math?" Mal asked.

"Excuse me." Simon didn't entirely understand this, "But why are you so interested in helping him now?"

"Let's just say I wanted to get rid of our 'guest' here, but now Nishka made it a little more personal." Mal replied, after which he turned to Reese, "Can you tell me where he is now?"

Reese couldn't say anything, but didn't even nod or shake his head as a reply, at which River said: "He may have moved by now."

"That's a chance we'll have to take." Mal replied, "You know where he is?"

Though still a little reluctant, Reese nodded, after which Mal said: "Great! Then let's get back to the ship and prep to visit our mutual friend."


	15. Chapter 15

At Nishka's base, the man himself was laughing out loud, knowing what he had accomplished some time ago.

"I wish I could see Malcolm Reynold's face when he sees what I have done." he laughed.

"You mean that little bugger?" Badger asked.

That's when Murdock entered the room: "Sir, we've just spotted a Firefly, approaching our position."

"Good." Nishka replied, "You know what to do then."

"Yes sir." Murdock replied.

"Mr. Badger." Nishka turned back to him, "You know what to do with the canisters of New Pax, don't you?"

"Er... yeah... yes, I think so." Badger replied.

"Good." Nishka repeated.

The Firefly in question, which as one would have guessed, was Serenity, approached the base, which was in fact a satellite orbiting a planet. Before docking, Mal had briefed everyone.

"Okay now." he started, "We all know why we're here."

"To finish unfinished business?" Jayne replied, questioningly, while cocking his gun.

"That too." Mal answered, "But we're also here to... well Jayne just summed it up. Let's go!"

The Firefly was docking, while soldiers inside were getting ready to fire when needed. Murdock, who was hiding behind everyone else, gave the order: "You all know who we're facing. I therefor order you to..."

The Firefly's door opened before he could finish. But nobody came out. Though Murdock thought to have seen someone peeking out. Immediately, he shot at that someone, which alarmed everyone else to shoot as well.

"You missed." somebody called over the intercom, which surprised all the soldiers, as they didn't recognize the voice.

In Nishka office, his intercom let him hear the same voice. He, on the other hand, did recognize the voice: "Mal?"

Next thing the soldiers knew, a little girl came out of the Firefly, with only one gun, with which she shot everyone on sight. With those soldiers dead, other ones came closer, only to be shot by four more people.

Mal then spoke into the machine that Reese had used before: "You hear that, Nishka? That was the sound of your men dying."

Seeing this, Murdock couldn't think of anything else, but to retreat.

"If you were anything of a man yourself, you'd not run this time, and let me find you." Mal threatened.

Hearing him, Nishka made his decision. He would face Mal, alright. He opened a hidden door, which he entered.

With this first wave taken care of, everyone readied their guns once more. River, however, gave the handgun she just used back to Reese, only to hold a long knife and axe herself. This appeared weird to Reese, so River explained: "Don't worry. I stopped an army of Reavers using only these."

"All right." Mal said, as he put the machine in one of his pockets, after which he turned to Zoe and Jayne, "You two with me."

Then he turned to Reese and River: "You two go set up the charges."

And at last, there were Simon, Kaylee and Inara: "You hold the fort."

"Mal, wait!" Inara tried to stop him, "Last time you've been here, you nearly died."

"That's happened before." Mal said flatly, "And I survived each time."

After that, he ran off, leaving Inara more than a little indignant.

And indeed, the group had split up. Zoe, however didn't seem to be all to satisfied with how they were divided: "Are you sure you wanted to send River with that Reese?"

"He's supposed to be so important." Mal replied, flatly, "Then his best chances are with River."

"Since when do YOU care about him?" Jayne asked.

"If I got a coin for each time someone asked me that..." Mal sighed.

Knowing the satellite a little better than River, Reese found his way easily through all the seemingly endless corridors. But just as he was about to go around a corner, River only just managed to pull him back. Just in time, as Murdock awaited them there, and shot a weapon he had just picked up. A weapon, of which its effects weren't at all unfamiliar to Reese. It was one of those sound-wave guns, powerful enough to destroy everything in it's path, including human flesh. It reminded him of how his friends had died at Blue Sun. Remembering this, he sank down to his knees.

"It's alright." River assured him, "Nothing bad will happen to you."

Reese didn't appear to be assured, as River could tell, upon hearing his thoughts.

"Well then, you wouldn't mind if I take that man down." she said, as she turned around the corner.

Reese still tried to stop her, but he was too late. River had started at Murdock, using her knife. The effect of it, however, wasn't at all what she expected. She did cut him, but it looked as though he didn't feel any pain. She had heard him thinking that she can't hurt him, but she thought he just had too high a self-esteem. Turns out he had a reason to have such an esteem of himself.

Meanwhile, Mal and his group had arrived at Nishka's office, but Nishka himself was nowhere in sight.

"Oh, come on!" Mal shouted.

"He sure ain't the man he wants us to think he is." Jayne laughed.

"That is correct, Mr... Cobb, wasn't it?" Nishka's voice said, though nobody saw where it came from, "I am not much of a man."

That's when the same secret door he opened earlier, opened in front of the three's eyes. What came from behind the door looked like a robot, except that it had a fish-bowl head, with Nishka's head inside it.

"Oh, you've got to be kidding!" Mal exclaimed.

"I'm not enough of a kid to be... 'kidding'." Nishka said.

"Whatever you say." Zoe said, as she cocked her gun and shot the fish-bowl. The only effect it had was that it recocheted. In other words, the glass wouldn't break that easily.

"I'm too much of a machine now, to be a man." Nishka said.

"Oh, another wise-cracker, huh..." Jayne tried to look tough, though he was hiding behind Mal when saying this.

"And I'm supposed to shield you how?" Mal asked him.

That's when Nishka made his robotic arm swing at them. The three of them only narrowly managed to duck down, but how long could they dodge his attacks before finding anything that would help against this thing?


	16. Chapter 16

While they were trying to take Nishka down, Reese and River had a problem of their own. River was fighting someone who didn't appear to feel any pain at all, while Reese was afraid to fight. He knew exactly how Murdock's weapon worked, or rather what it does to human flesh, as he had seen it happen before. It reminded him of something else: why had it happened? Because to use his friend, Lewis's exact words, Reese himself was too important. That reminded him of what had happened to Gommen's village, where he had told them what had happened, and how his survival was imperative. Telling them that, when Nishka's men arrived, the villagers had helped him escape. Needless to say that with him gone, Nishka's men could not find him, so they torched down the village. Reese was about to have a nervous breakdown, as an entire village had died just so he'd live. All the while, there was one thing that kept him relatively sane: River Tam. He had seen videos of a doctor interrogating her, he's seen what they had done,... his sense of pity slowly grew into something more than that. Not only did the anger of knowing what they had done to her strengthen him, but the hope of actually meeting with her had given him a power that he could not have imagined. But since he was with her, she was risking her own life so he'd live. That was never what he intended to happen. Too many people already died because of him. Suddenly, he realized nobody else needed to die no more.

All the while, Mal did a desperate attempt to try and beat Nishka. He took Reese's machine, hoping he could somehow use it to contact him. But before he could utter even one word, Nishka smacked it out of his hands and unto the wall, subsequently destroying it.

"Amusing!" Nishka laughed, "I have seen this thing before."

"Greetings from Reese." Mal said, as he tried to kick Nishka's fish-bowl head, but ended up hurting his leg instead.

In order to help Mal, and hopefully defeat Nishka, Zoe shot at Nishka's suit. It did nothing.

"Jayne." she commanded, "Try to aim at the same spot I'm aiming."

"Where are you aiming at?" Jayne asked.

Nishka turned around to look at Zoe, after which the latter shot him again, thereby answering to Jayne: "That's what I'm aiming at."

Having this cleared out, Jayne shot too. But even with the combined strength, the suit wouldn't weaken.

While this was going on, despite of River's unusual strength, Murdock did not give in to what she did to him. Any more cuts and/or bruises, none of it seemed to slow him down one bit. At some point, Murdock raised his weapon, with which he managed to fend off another one of River's attacks. Though River saw it coming, she didn't anticipate the weapon would be made of such strong alloy, therefor she got knocked down. That's when Murdock saw his chance to shoot her with it, but then a loud thunderous bang roared through the corridor. Whatever it was, it caused some of Murdock's blood to sputter unto River's face. Murdock too was surprised. Although he didn't feel any pain when he heard the shot, he did feel something leaving his body, and slowly started to feel less in his entire body. And when he tried to move, he felt a soaring pain all through his right shoulder. He looked up, and saw Reese, pointing his handgun at him. Murdock tried to raise his gun at him, but then River did a special move with her legs, which got him to trip and let go of the sound-wave gun. River picked it up, aimed it at Murdock's head and shot him.

"No power in the 'verse can stop us." River said, as she turned to look at Reese, who only shyly looked back.

"Cheer up." she smiled, "We still got an entire station to blow up."

Reese looked up to the loudspeakers in the corridor. Whatever went through his mind, River heard him: "I know, if Nishka was defeated, Mal would have told us now. Wonder what happened."

Reese took one of the timer-grenates out of his pockets. He remembered how long it took them to even reach it this far, to which River replied: "Yes, and now we might have to go help them."

Reese looked at her, questioningly, after which she stuck out her hand: "Give me that."

Assuming she meant the grenade, he gave it to her. With it in her hands, she did a quick calculation in her head, after which she had set the time on the grenade, which was forty minutes. She explained: "So once this is set, we'll have only forty minutes to help Mal and get back to Serenity. Think you can handle it?"

Reese raised his usual eyebrow, with a somewhat sarcastic expression on his face, to which River replied: "Good. Let's go!"

After they had set the plastic explosive blocks and the grenade, they hurried to Nishka's office. In there, they saw how much of a hard time they were given. But River had the solution in her hands. She entered the office and shouted: "Mal! use this!"

She threw something to Mal, who caught it, after which he recognized what he was just given: "One o' those Alliance wave guns? Are you kidding?"

That's when Nishka started towards him. More in reflex than clever thinking, Mal raised the gun and shot it, causing Nishka's fish-bowl head to tear up. It also caused some of the pieces to penetrate his face, causing him to have to leave his mechanical suit.

Surprised the sound-wave gun actually worked, Mal dropped it and took his own entrusted gun. He grabbed Nishka by his throat, saying: "Well then, how well do you..."

"Mal!" River exclaimed, "We've only got fourteen minutes to leave the station!"

"Only fourteen?" Jayne asked, "Why did you..."

He got interrupted by Mal's gun, which shot a hole through Nishka's head: "Didn't know what to say anyway."

The five of them together ran as if their lives depended on it, which it did. It wasn't easy, as Mal, for one, had a broken leg of fighting Nishka. At some point, he dropped himself down. The other four stopped, but Mal said: "Don't stop! I'll catch up with you guys later."

The first one of them to give any reaction at all, was Reese, who beated him somewhere on the back of Mal's neck, knocking him out cold.

"Thank you." Zoe said, as she picked him up and ran along with him on her shoulders.

Once they have arrived back at Serenity, River did not hesitate for one second to enter the cockpit and get the ship flying. Just in time, as she space-station blew up right behind them.

What they didn't know, is that before they left, another ship had already left the space-station. Inside it, where a small group people, along with canisters, marked to be dangerous. Among the ship's crew, there was a man with a bowler hat and a cockney accent. The man that everyone had come to know as Badger.

"Well done again, Mal." Badger congratulated him, "With that (speaks Chinese) gone, I'm sure I'll get my own chance."

After that, he turned to the pilot: "Pilot, follow that wreck of a ship!"

The pilot, without any question, did as he was told.


	17. Chapter 17

On Serenity, the wounded were taken care of. At worst, there were a few bruises and one broken leg. While that leg was taken care of, its owner, Mal, had his things to say to Reese: "You're starting to have a thing for punching me."

Reese himself shrugged, but River said: "You deserve at least one for every bad word you ever said."

Mal sighed: "I'll be glad when she won't need to talk for you anymore."

"Makes two of us." was his sad reply.

Mal ignored him, turned away and headed to the cockpit.

Once he arrived, one of the screens started to flicker. He was receiving a wave from someone. As he took it, Badger appeared on the screen.

"Hey there!" Badger said, "Long time no see."

"It's only been a day." Mal said, "And last time I saw you, you put a price on my head."

"Ah, don't worry about that!" Badger sounded ensuring, too ensuring, "That'll all be taken care of. But right now, I got a job for you."

"Oh really?" Mal didn't believe him, "Would it involve you double-crossing us? Again?"

"Oh no!" Badger assured him, "Just need some help carryin' somethin'. I've got something that will be put into mass-production, and I need someone who can deliver it."

Mal seemed to consider it: "That sounds tempting."

"Don't do it!" Mal heard River's voice, though her serious tone indicated she was speaking for Reese.

Mal muted the screen, turned to look behind him and spotted Reese and River.

"Tell me..." Mal started, "... why should I refuse an offer that I can't refuse?"

"See those canisters behind him?" Reese pointed out.

Mal looked back at the screen, and spotted the canisters behind Badger: "That must be that product he mentioned."

"That's the new PAX that Nishka was working on!" Reese told him.

This didn't seem possible to Mal: "Are you sure?"

River spoke instead of Reese: "He's seen those canisters before. Their design, their markings... there's no mistaking it, they belonged to Nishka before."

In other words, Mal thought, Badger had somehow sneaked into Nishka's headquarters and stole some of his stash, either before or while they were dealing with him. Either way, he's had first hand experience with people who got affected by the PAX, he didn't want to know what effect this version would have. He didn't want to help Badger, but he didn't want to be responsible for destroying the System.

"You're sure you have a way to neutralize the PAX?" Mal asked him.

Reese nodded, upon which Mal turned back to the screen, unmuted it, to continue his conversation with Badger: "I accept your offer."

Reese was about to start towards Mal, but River, who had heard exactly what Mal was thinking, stopped Reese, assuring him there's a plan.

"Good!" Badger sounded, "Meet me on Persephone in one day."

The screen shut itself down, so Mal turned back to Reese: "Can you give me the coordinates to the planet?"

Reese nodded.

"Give them to me." Mal said.

Instead of saying anything, River took the ship's controls, pressed a few buttons, and plotted a course to the planet: "Done."

Mal knew he shouldn't be surprised, but he was anyway: "Right... now suit up. Wouldn't wanna risk running into who-knows-whats."

As the Firefly headed for the planet, Badger's ship had picked up on their trail. They waited for them to arrive and land first, so their own sudden appearance wouldn't seem too conspicuous.

Before they landed, however, one of the people inside spoke to Badger: "These are the only weapons we could find. It looks like the man really prefered cutting weapons over guns."

Badger looked at the weapons, which for the most part were just knives. Among them, he found some kind of a glove that had razor-sharp pins as long as knives on it's knuckles. He put this on, saying: "No matter, I'm not planning on killing him. Just pay him back for buggering with me."

"Really?" someone else, who was there when Mal had beaten him up last time, asked, "I thought you just wanted a hump with some girl or other."

"Yes, I still do." Badger replied, "I did say, I wasn't planning to."

"Er... I'm sorry..." a third guy started, who stood dangerously close to the canisters of PAX, "... but what do you wanna do with these?"

He tapped the canister, at which Badger shouted: "Don't touch that!"

But he was too late. Somehow, upon tapping the canister, he had caused it to release the gas it contained. Out of reflex, this guy tried to close it again, but he was handling it too brutally, it merely caused other canisters to release it's gas as well. Everyone inside did their best not to breath it in, but it was too late for all of them. Including the pilot, who then lost control over the ship.


	18. Chapter 18

Everyone was in the cargo bay, each and everyone of them with their own weapons of choice, or rather whichever they found easiest to use. Everyone, except for Mal, River and Reese, as the former controlled the ship's landing, and the latter two had to point out where to find it.

"You know, you could just wait in the cargo bay and let me land it." River remarked.

"You must be joking!" Mal exclaimed, "I've let the two of you control my life just about enough, so allow me to control something."

River and Reese looked at each other at that point. Reese, who had to interrupt his re-loading of his handgun, merely shrugged. Not too long after that, he recognized something out the window, so River said: "There it is."

Mal looked at what she pointed: "That's the base?"

What he saw was a small rocky hill, with one hole in it, likely a cave of some sort. At Mal's remark, River said, using Reese's tone: "What did you expect? A huge bill-board?"

"I'd expect something more recognizable." Mal bit back.

"I recognize it. That's all that matters." was the reply.

As the three of them headed down to the bay themselves, Reese saw it necessary to carry around his heavier gun as well. Seeing this, and looking at his own weapon, Jayne asked: "You know, Mal, I don't mind carrying guns, but what d'ya think would happen down here?"

"I dunno." Mal replied, "For some reason, something always happens when we think nothin'll happen. Better be prepared."

That's when the cargo bay's door opened, revealing to everyone where they had to go next.

"Is this it?" Simon asked.

Jayne sighed: "Why do secret bases never have giant bill-boards saying "here it is"?"

The whole group walked to the cave. But as they went, they heard some kind of whistling sound. Upon hearing it, they all turned to see what's causing it. It looked like another ship which was crashing down.

"There you have it." Mal sighed, as he raised his gun.

"What do you mean?" Jayne asked, "They're down, ain't nothing the gorram thing can do."

"And what got them down?" Mal questioned.

To this Jayne had no answer. Simon however had some idea: "Could it be any of Nishka's men?"

"No, we did them all in." Zoe reminded him.

Suddenly, something appeared to move from the crashed ship. Whatever it was, it was clearly too strong for the crash to kill, and there appeared to be more than one as it got closer. Still, their demeanor was familiar.

"Zoe, do they look like what I think they look like?" Mal asked.

"They act like Reavers." Zoe replied.

"Looks like we'll need that neutralizer sooner than we thought." Simon said.

"Reese!" Mal commanded, "You better go and do what you have to. River, you go with him!"

Both Reese and River nodded, as they went inside. Mal added: "The rest of us better stay to keep these things away."

"Are you crazy!" Inara asked Mal, "These people just survived a crash, what do you think we can do to them?"

"Whatever we have to." Mal replied.

"In that case..." Inara started, but for some reason didn't finish her sentence.

"What?" Mal asked, sounding a little annoyed.

At that moment, Inara didn't care about much anymore. Not about what may or may not happen, nor how anyone would react to what she did just then. She flung her arms around Mal and kissed him deeply. Although it lasted just for a few seconds, when she stopped, it got Mal a little off balance.

Still keeping himself strong, he ordered: "We'd better enforce the cave better."

As he was about to leave the spot he was standing at, he saw how his crew looked at him and Inara. Mal shouted: "If we keep standing here, we ain't helpin' nobody! Let's go already!"

As said, they rolled some boulders together, hoping to have some kind of shield to guard them against what was heading towards them. There were moments when Mal and Inara appeared uncomfortable to stay too close to each other, but that didn't stop them... yet. Once they had their reinforcements, all there was for them to do was wait until THEY came.

"Why did you kiss me?" Mal asked Inara.

"I was afraid I won't get another chance." Inara answered.

Mal didn't say anything. For once Inara had made him perfectly speechless.

Meanwhile, the other four had their own problems to deal with.

"I can't just stay here." Simon whined, "What if something happened to River. I must..."

"Simon, please!" Kaylee stopped him, "She doesn't need her brother to keep watching over her. You should know that by now."

"He's right to be concerned." Zoe reasoned, "Even the capt'n isn't in it today."

"That ever made a difference?" Jayne asked.

"Yes." Zoe replied, "First there were six of us. With the capt'n and Inara now distracted, we're two men short."

Jayne, obviously hadn't thought of that.

Suddenly, the upcoming threat had closed in on them. Both sides used whatever firepower they had on each other. One of the wild men, however, managed to jump over the line of fire and landed on top of Mal. It then raised it's hand, which had razor-sharp pins as long as knives on it's glove's knuckles. It also carried what looked like a cross-bow, but his assailant decided not to use it. Mal saw it's face, and couldn't help thinking it looked a lot like Badger. Before it could do anything, it appeared to smell something inside the cave. It got off him and ran into the cave. Mal was about to run after him, but Zoe stopped him.

"Sir, we need you here!" she exclaimed.  
"But what about that... thing?" he insisted.

"There's a girl in there who could survive an entire horde of Reavers!" Zoe reminded him, "You think she can't survive just the one?"

Reconsidering this, Mal decided to get back on figthing the other ones.


	19. Chapter 19

Reese and River arrived at the end of the tunnel. It looked as though there was nothing there, but judging from what went through Reese's mind, River knew it only looked that way. Reese moved a rock away, which revealed a hidden switch. While he did that, River sensed something else.

"There's someone here." she whispered.

Reese looked at her questioningly. Without looking at him, she replied: "No, it's nobody we know."

Afraid of who or what it may be, Reese put the rock back, hoping that the intruder did not see it. He put down his machine gun and raised his handgun, while River readied her knife and ax. Slowly, it came from out of the shadows. It was just one man, so not much of a problem for River. In order for this to be a fair fight, she decided to put down her sharp objects and fight this man, who looked vaguely familiar to River, hand-to-hand. The man had his cross-bow at the ready, but he didn't seem to want to use it, so he hung it back on his back, slowly approaching River, who then started to attack him.

Reese saw this happening, but couldn't help himself to, again, feel like someone's about to sacrifice himself, or in this case herself, just so he'd live. He pointed his gun, but with the two fighting, he had no clear shot. River seemed to realize what he wanted to do, and continued fighting in such a way so the assailant would be standing between the two youngsters. Once there, Reese had a clear shot, and shot a few times. What happened then was... nothing! The man was still standing. But even if Reese missed, the bullets should have ricocheted around the man, which it didn't. That's when Reese remembered. He kept his bullets in two pockets, one for actual bullets, another for blanks. Remembering from which pocket he took his bullets last time he reloaded, he realized he has accidentally loaded his gun with blanks. Reese wanted to reload, but in at all even thinking that, he merely gave their assailant a moment to ready his cross-bow. Just when he was about to shoot, River managed to stop him, by kicking him in the back of his knees. In doing so however, she caused him to drop down, but somehow also raising his bow to the extent that it pointed behind him, when he accidentally pulled the trigger, shooting his arrow anyway. This event resulted in the arrow hitting River in her shoulder, which caused her to fall backwards.

Seeing this, Reese wanted to shout her name, out of reflex, but he still had that thing on his mouth that kept him from talking. He saw her fall down, starting to heavily lose blood. Angered by this, Reese decided to pick up her weapons and attack the man himself. The man, however, was too fast for Reese. In an attempt to cut the man's head off, the man used his cross-bow as a shield, with which he managed to take the knife out of his hands. Another attempt was made with the ax, but that one got stuck in the bow, which the man then decided to drop, after which he punched his spiked knuckles into Reese's belly. This got him disoriented, giving the man a chance to punch him in the face, really hard. With Reese down, the man decided to turn all his attention to River, as she was his primary target.

Meanwhile, Reese was suffering greatly from his belly, but strangely not from his face. It was like that which he had in his mouth had protected him there. Keeping his right hand on his belly, he examined that mouth-piece with his left hand. Not much to his surprise, the thing seemed to be broken, so he could easily take it back off. But upon closer examination, it looked as though it was broken into sharper pieces. Then he remembered that his handgun wasn't the only gun he had on him.

The savage man was standing over River, who then woke up. She saw the man's face, which she remembered to have seen before. But that didn't matter at the time. She could feel the arrow sticking in her shoulder, as well as whatever the man had in mind of doing to her. The combination of all these things got her to panic. She didn't want to hear what this man was thinking, and the arrow in her shoulder made her too weak to do anything to him.

"No..." she cried, "So... much... pain... don't do... this..."

"You like pain?" a voice behind the man said, causing to turn around and got something smashed in his face, which turned out to be Reese's mouthpiece, "How's having that in your face!"

Somehow, the mouth-piece had been jammed into the man's face, not causing a great enough pain, but at least he lost his sense of sight. With that, he couldn't see Reese raising his machine gun and shoot him. Reese didn't care about shooting an entire clip at this man, especially since one bullet wasn't enough to stop him, so he was obliged to use up all of his bullets. At long last, the man fell down. With this, Reese didn't have any more energy to keep standing up. He fell down, still trying to keep his belly from bleeding. River then tried to move herself closer to him, trying to comfort him.

"It's alright." she said after which she gently took his machine gun out of his hands. Then, the savage man quickly stood up again. With whatever bit of strength River could muster in her arms, she threw the gun at the man, in such a way that it's barrel went through the man's neck, like a knife through butter. With this, the man was down, as was River.

Worried, Reese called for her: "River!"

She only just managed to bring a smile on her face: "It's nice to hear you call my name."

Reese shook his head: "I'm sure it is, but right you need..."

"I need to rest." River interrupted him, "As should you."

Given his wound, it seemed like a good idea, but Reese made up his mind. He knew that this man was the effect of that new form of PAX. Judging from the fact that the others didn't show themselves, he deduced they're still outside fighting off others, and assumed that if just one got through, he and River could handle him. Still, that would mean that the Serenity crew is fighting a horde of these, so Reese knew he had to do something to stop it.

With whatever bit of strength Reese had left, he pulled himself together, got up to the end of the cave, turned on the switch, which revealed three things: a keyboard, a retinal and hand-print scanner. Reese gave it whatever it needed, which then opened a door a storage room, where there were more canisters. All he had to do was torn on the valve of one of them, and a gas escaped. It did nothing to him or River, but that wasn't what he was trying to do either.

Much like Reese and River had trouble with the one man inside the cave, the rest of the crew had trouble keeping a whole group of them away. But suddenly, some kind of cloud escaped from the cave. It didn't do anything to the six of them, but the savages attacking them instantly gagged and had fainted.

"What happened?" Zoe wondered.

"Looks like Reese pulled through." Mal said, though it wasn't clear whether he was happy about it or not.

When he was done, Reese decided to drop himself down. Seeing him fall like that, it had River worried. She called his name, but he didn't respond. But she wasn't ready to give up on him yet either. She found a new strength that helped her crawl over the floor, just to reach for him.

While she was crawling, the other six had started searching the men they just fought. Earlier, they weren't easy to take down, but now that gas turned them back to normal, they fell down like bricks.

Though it looked like they were all down, Mal still needed to be sure: "That's all of them?"

"I don't see any more of them, sir." Zoe said.

"Well, even if there were any more, we still have that little girl to take care of them." Jayne remarked.

"I hope so." Mal answered, then whispered the rest, "For the sake of your remark."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Jayne wondered indignant.

"Capt'n." Zoe started, "I told you, you shouldn't worry about the one man who got in."

"One of them got in?" Simon sounded panicked, "I've got to go see them!"

"Simon!" Kaylee called after him.

"Follow the doc!" Mal laughed, as he followed Simon's lead.

While Simon was on his way, River still tried to reach Reese. She had to crawl very carefully, as she still had that arrow in her shoulder. She thought of taking it out, but knowing it might only worsen if she did that, she'd rather trust her brother to do this. While crawling, she still called Reese's name. Eventually, he did open his eyes, after which he tried to get up too. He failed, but he didn't give up. Like River, he tried to crawl closer to her. When at least their hands were in reach, they grabbed hold of each other, thereby pulling themselves closer to each other. Once close enough, he put his hand behind her neck. She smiled, hoping he'd do whatever he had in mind of doing, say whatever he should have said earlier, but couldn't.

"After... all this..." Reese whispered, "You... know... what I learned?"

River shook her head, to which Reese said: "Speech is overrated."

That's when he pressed his lips against hers and kissed her deeply. She was rather disappointed that he didn't actually say he loved her, but that faded away as he kissed her. It felt that good to her, she couldn't believe he'd do something like this, nor would she believe that the things that went through his mind at the time would even go through if he didn't love her. To her, it felt the same as saying the words. Unfortunately, this moment wasn't meant to last long. Reese's kiss started to weaken every second, until a point came he stopped kissing, or just stopped moving altogether.


	20. Chapter 20

The others arrived, only to find their youngest friends unconscious, covered in blood. Particularly Simon was shocked to see his sister in the state she was in. He shouted her name, hoping to get some kind of a reply, but she said nothing.

"She needs medical attention, as soon as possible!" he exclaimed as he tried to pick her up.

Zoe decided to help him, and in doing so, in the end she was the one to carry River, as she was much stronger than Simon, and the latter needed all his breath to help her. As Zoe had her in River in her arms, Simon warned her: "Be careful with that arrow."

"I've helped people who've been shot before." Zoe assured him, "I know what I'm doing."

That's when all his attention turned to Reese. He felt his pulse, which was very weak.

"Is he dead?" Mal almost sounded concerned.

"No, but he will be if I can't help him." Simon replied.

This surprised Mal: "What do you mean?"

"I thought you could help anyone?" Kaylee questioned.

"I could fix him up, if I had the right equipment." Simon replied, "But even then, he's lost a lot of blood. I can help River with her blood loss as I'm her brother, but Reese... I don't even know his blood type, and even if I did, I'm not sure we'll have enough blood to give..."

That's when River mumbled something. Nobody was sure what she said though: "C... Cy... on..."

To her brother is sounded like she was trying to say "Simon", therefor he ran back to her: "I'm here. Don't worry, you're..."

"No..." she interrupted him, and with still some difficulty, she finally managed to say: "... Cylon."

"Cylon?" Jayne sounded surprised, "What the (speaks Chinese) is a Cylon?"

To Simon, however, it appeared to mean something. After some seconds, he remembered why: "Of course!"

"What? What is it?" Mal asked.

"It's where the resistance is based!" Simon exclaimed.

"It's a planet?" Mal sounded surprised.

"Yes! I have stayed there myself before I saved River." Simon answered, "Those guys were prepared for anything. They've got food, water, weapons, even medical equipment."

"But why is it on another planet instead of right here?" Inara wondered.

Mal, however was more concerned over something else: "And they're just gonna let us in that easily?"

"Well..." Kaylee said, "Reese is the last living member of the resistance, so..."

"If they got blood, they'd better know his blood type as well." Zoe remarked, "But if there's no one there..."

"With the proper equipment, I can find that out for myself, so that shouldn't be a problem." Simon interrupted her.

"You know where we can find this... Cylon?" Mal finally asked.

"Yes." Simon answered.

"Then we have no time to waste. Let's go!" Mal ordered.

As said, they traveled to the aforementioned planet. Being the so-called best surgeon in the system, Simon had no difficulty to fix up both his sister and Reese, or at least as good as he could. When they arrived at the resistance base, Simon did not hesitate to take what he needed to help both of his patients. The rest of them had other concerns, as the base has stored lots of food, as well as weapons, albeit weapons from the previous centuries but having those were better than having none.

A few hours after they landed, they had managed to load up their ship with all their needs. Simon, however found it necessary to pick up some more bags of blood before they left. Once he returned to the ship, and as the door was closing behind him, Mal remarked: "Well, I didn't think that Reese would pay us for our own efforts, and now look at this."

"Think we'll come around for a few months, sir." Zoe added.

"You went through all this trouble hoping he'd pay you?" Inara questioned.

"Well, even if his plan failed, I just wanted to be sure we didn't do this for nothing." Mal answered.

This started another argument between these two. Simon decided to ignore them, as he headed straight towards the infirmary.

"Their first quarrel as lovers." Kaylee laughed, as she joined Simon.

"You almost sound like you're looking forward to our own." Simon said.

Avoiding this, she then asked: "So River and Reese will be okay?"

Simon sighed, but then spoke as though he wasn't annoyed: "It'll still be a while. Even if they've got enough blood, they'll still need to recover from their wounds."

This appeared to sound funny to Kaylee: "So you're saying they'll both have to stay in the infirmary for a while?"

"As much as I like to keep River out of there, as it's not her favorite place in the ship, yes they'll have to stay." Simon replied.

Kaylee seemed to think otherwise: "I think River will not be so angry about that."

Simon shrugged, after which he opened the door to the infirmary. Whatever he saw then, caused him to drop his bags of blood, shut the door again and cover his eyes.

"What's wrong?" Kaylee seemed worried.

"I..." Simon muttered, "I... did... not... see that!"

Kaylee laughed: "Are you saying they're...?"

"Nothing's going on in there!" Simon exclaimed, as he tried to get Kaylee to turn away, "There's nothing to see there!"

"Nothin' to see?" Jayne had suddenly appeared at the scene too, looking through one of the windows that allowed them to see inside, "Looks to me like..."

"Do you mind!" Simon tried to persuade him to look away, "That's my sister in there!"

Inside the infirmary, River and Reese were having, what some may call, the time of their lives. Although still recovering from their wounds, and still weakened from their loss of blood, it looked like nothing could stop them from spending some time, really close together, on the same bed, or table, or whatever anyone would call it. Whatever happened outside the room, neither one seemed to care, as they've got each other to worry about. At this point, nobody in the ship could be more happy than these two.

**THE END**


End file.
